


Love Is Strange

by Lemmerman



Category: Krypton (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-05-09 23:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 66,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemmerman/pseuds/Lemmerman
Summary: Life in Kandor has been the same for as long as you can remember. You, your friends Seg and Kem, and the same old Kryptonian monotony.But then a mysterious man arrives, bringing with him omens of a great evil on the horizon that only Seg can stop. Soon, you find yourself wrapped up in the struggle to stop Brainiac from stealing your city, even as politics and civil unrest threaten to tear Kandor apart from within.And as if the loss of your home isn't enough to contend with, you also have to grapple with your heart. Can a romance between a Kryptonian and a time travelling human succeed, or is it doomed to fail right from the start? You're more than willing to find out - because love may be strange, but so is Adam, and you're pretty sure he's worth fighting for.





	1. Strange Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x02 - House Of El

Life in Kandor has always been difficult. At least, it has for the Rankless, the second class citizens of Krypton. The Rankless are the planet’s refuse; superfluous Kryptonians that the Guilds are happy enough to use for manual labour or undesirable jobs, but when it comes to social status or even being acknowledged for their contributions to keeping Kandor running? Yeah, right.

You’ve gotten used to it, though. You’ve made your peace with the fact that Kandor isn’t going to change. The Ranked preside over the Rankless, the Guilds preside over the Ranked, and the Voice Of Rao presides over you all. That’s just how it’s always been, and that’s how it’s going to stay.

Not that you’ve ever deluded yourself into thinking that you would be able to make a change. A Rankless bartender isn’t important enough for the Gods to notice; your life is going to be just like Kandor – exactly the same, from start to finish.

It’s not a bad life, though. Sure, you could do with more food, better clothes, maybe a bit more light so you don’t fall over quite so much, and it’d be nice not to have the Sagitari pointing guns at you as often as they do, but in the grand scheme of things it could most definitely be worse.

You have a home, small as it is. You have a job, working at Kem’s tavern where drinks flow just as freely as punches. And you have some of the best friends a Kryptonian could ask for. 

There’s Kem himself of course, who you’ve known since you were both children; at this point you basically consider him to be your blood brother. For the Rankless, family is a lot more of a flexible concept. Not having last names makes it easier to look at everyone as a brother or sister, because why the hell not. 

And then there’s Kem’s best friend – Seg. The infamous Seg. Seg, formally known as Seg-El. The Fallen El, the Traitor El; he has lots of nicknames, none of which he particularly likes, but you just call him Seg.

He is one of the rare Rankless, one who wasn’t born without Rank but had it stripped from him when he was a child. After his grandfather Val-El had been executed for spreading rumours regarding the existence of life outside of Krypton, Seg and his whole family had lost their Rank. For all intents and purposes, the House of El is no more.

Not that it mattered to you; Seg has been your friend for as long as you could remember. Where he and Kem go, so do you. 

Once, you had hoped Seg would be something more than just a friend. He had always been cute, you couldn’t deny that, and nowadays he was so much more. He has a kind of rugged handsomeness that you associated with princes in story books, and he always has a mischievous twinkle in his eye, as if he’s up to something. You’d been head over heels in love with him for cycles and cycles, truth be told, although whenever Kem had ribbed you for it you’d denied it.

Seg himself has always been blissfully ignorant of your affections however, which is just fine with you. It meant that he hadn’t noticed how hurt you’d been when he’d started seeing Lyta-Zod. It meant that he had never treated you any differently.

Your heart had ached for weeks after you had realised that Seg was in love with someone else. It was irrational, you knew that. He’d never known how you felt, and you’d never told him. There was no reason for you to give up on the idea of love. But seeing Seg with Lyta, how happy she made him, it had made you feel as if you would never find someone who would do that for you. And with Seg’s recently reacquired Rank, even if it wasn’t quite the Rank he wanted, he was soon going to be far beyond your reach anyway, trapped in a vicious triangle between Lyta and Nyssa-Vex.

So you’ve resigned yourself to a life without love, content to live vicariously through Seg and Lyta, drifting through your days without incident (or no incident bigger than another one of Seg’s bar brawls, anyway). That was just another disappointment in the life of a Rankless – not surprising at all, really. 

Today is a day like any other in the long parade of exactly the same days that make up your life. You’d shown up for your shift at Kem’s and he’d set you out front serving orders while he checked inventory in the back. Mostly it was an excuse for him to get away; the bar only served whatever Kem could get his hands on, so inventory wasn’t that important. Still, you didn’t begrudge him. He was here almost every day – he deserved a break every now and then.

It’s still early, so there aren’t many customers yet. You wipe the bar absently, peering at the few tables that are occupied in case anyone needs a drink, but no one is even close to the bottom of their glass yet.

As your gaze drifts slowly across the room, it comes to rest on the entrance arch to the tavern. Your eyes glaze over and you can feel your mind beginning to drift as well, knowing full well that someone will pull you out of your reverie when they want something from you.

And then suddenly you blink, and there’s a man in the entryway. A man you’ve never seen before. That in itself isn’t too surprising; there were thousands of Rankless citizens, you didn’t know everyone on sight. But this man is different, strikingly so.

His clothes are peculiar, for a start. He appears to be wearing pants made of some kind of hardy blue material you aren’t familiar with, while his shirt is grey and padded. It looks soft to the touch, built for comfort instead of practicality like most Rankless clothing. And atop his head is a dark blue cover with an elaborate silver emblem on the front, which is for no Guild you’ve ever seen before. To make things even more confusing, it has a kind of...balcony for his head, poking out over his forehead and shielding his eyes.

It’s the most bizarre ensemble you have ever seen, but even if it hadn’t been he would have instantly drawn your gaze. There’s something about him, something mysterious and guarded, like a padlock on a treasure chest just waiting to be opened.

Once you have registered your shock at what he’s wearing, you start to take in the rest of him. The looseness of his clothes make it difficult to gauge his body type, but his face is uncovered and much easier to read. 

He has a strong jaw, that’s the first thing you notice. That’s probably because of the long time you’ve spent staring at Seg’s jawline over the cycles; you’ve subconsciously become a jawline person without even realising.

His hair is almost all hidden by the blue cover, but his eyebrows are a dirty blonde so you imagine that the rest will match. You tilt your head to one side, trying to catch a glimpse of his eyes…

It’s only then that you realise he’s walking right towards you, and you nearly slide under the bar in embarrassment. 

“Hey, uh, I’m looking for – are you okay?” he asks as he arrives at the counter. His strong features are arrayed in a look of polite confusion, like you would give a small child that was doing something completely absurd for no reason other than that’s what children did. 

You blink rapidly, trying to re-centre your mind even as you look into his eyes. They’re a pale blue, almost grey, you note as you drag your concentration back into gear.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just...I’ve never seen you around before.”

“I’m new in town,” he says dismissively. He has an accent that you can’t quite place; maybe he’s from Kryptonopolis. The fashions differ wildly between Krypton’s cities; maybe his outfit is all the rage back home.

“Well, welcome to Kandor, and welcome to Kem’s,” you reply politely. He places his hands on the bar, and you note the callouses visible at the base of each finger. Those are hard working hands, you think. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m actually looking for Kem,” the man replies, eyes flitting backwards and forwards as if Kem might appear out of nowhere. “Seg sent me here, said he’d be able to hook me up with some new digs.”

“New...what?” 

“Clothes,” the man corrects himself. Not only does he look and sound funny, he speaks funny too. “New clothes. I’m trying to...blend in, and I guess I look kinda conspicuous dressed like this.”

“You do stick out a bit,” you agree. “Where’re you from, exactly?”

The man’s face locks itself down, as if he wants to answer but isn’t sure whether he can trust you or not. He deliberates for a long, painful second, then seems to come to an internal decision.

“Would you believe another planet?”

You can’t help but laugh. “You’re joking, right? There are no other planets, at least none with any life on them. Krypton’s alone in the universe. Everyone knows that.” And everyone who thought otherwise knew to keep their mouths shut, otherwise they’d end up like Seg’s grandfather.

Now it’s the man’s turn to smirk. “You’d wish that was true, if I told you what I was doing here.” He seems to relax now, easing onto a bar stool and keeping eye contact as he speaks.

The way he’s looking at you makes your legs want to melt out from under you again; no one has looked at you like that before, like you’re the only person that matters right at that moment. You lean as nonchalantly as you can against the bar top, holding his gaze, trying not to lose yourself in the depths of his eyes.

“Try me,” you challenge him, before pulling two glasses out of from under the counter and filling them with Kandorian ale. You slide one across to him, introducing yourself as you do so, and hold the other glass tight in both hands.

“I’m Adam,” he replies. “Adam Strange.”

“You sure are,” you counter, and he rolls his eyes.

“Like I haven’t heard that one before.” He tilts his glass in your direction and you tap yours against it. “Cheers.”

The man, Adam, swigs the ale like a seasoned pro before coughing violently and spluttering like a broken skimmer engine. You try to stop yourself from laughing as he struggles, but the look he shoots the half-empty glass is priceless.

“What the hell is that stuff? Tastes like Twinkies, with a hint of ground up cigarettes. Gross.” He pushes the glass away from him, and you replace it with something a little sweeter from a shelf behind you. 

The more he speaks, the more confused you become. Twinkies and cigarettes? Those aren’t Kryptonian words, that’s for sure. Even Kryptonopolis doesn’t have things with those names. Maybe he really is from another world?

You try to stamp that idea down as quickly as it arrives. That way lies treason and a cold, sharp fall outside of the Kandorian dome. But even as you attempt to squash it, you can feel it taking root in your mind – if he’s from another planet, then this might change...well, everything.

“Better?” you ask him, distracting yourself from your thoughts as he sips the light blue liquid. His expressive face contorts for a second as if he’s expecting a similar taste to before, but then he gives his new glass an approving look and licks his lips.

“Now that’s a proper drink.”

“So, care to tell me the rest of your story?” you prompt.

“I really shouldn’t,” he replies, looking shifty once again. 

“You don’t lead with ‘I’m from another planet’ and then refuse to tell the story. I don’t know how they do things on your planet, Adam of House Strange, but that’s not how we do it here.”

He smiles then, the edges of his mouth twitching upwards for the first time. It’s almost like looking at a completely different person, even if just for a second.

“Just Adam is fine,” he says. You nod, then fix him with a pointed glare, the one you usually reserve for the drunks who wanted one more drink after last call. Just like with them, it works and Adam relents.

“Okay, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The story he regales you with is so far-fetched, so unbelievable, that from anyone else you would think it a lie. But it’s so elaborate, and told with such urgency and conviction, that you instantly know that Adam is telling the truth. It’s a skill you’ve picked up after cycles of dealing with drunkards – you can tell when someone is lying, and Adam most assuredly is not.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re not just from another planet, but you’re from the future.”

Adam nods.

“And you’ve come back to the past to stop this evil metal monster thing called...Brainiac, was it?”

Adam nods again.

“To stop Brainiac from destroying Kandor, or Seg’s grandson will never grow up to be this...superhero on your planet, and basically all life in the universe will be doomed. That about it?”

“That is about it,” he confirms. He drains the rest of his drink and clinks the empty glass onto the bar with a sense of finality. “I told you that you wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

“But I do believe you,” you tell him matter-of-factly. And you do. No amount of fighting with yourself will convince you otherwise now; this man, this strange, mysterious man is from another world. 

“No, I’m not cra-wait, you do?” He looks shocked, those pale eyes massively wide and both hands bracing himself on the bar as if to hold him on his stool.

“You believe it, I can tell that much. And Seg must too, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent you here.”

Adam looks pensive for a moment, but he can’t seem to find a flaw in your logic. Instead, he just smiles at you, and you find yourself smiling back.

At that moment Kem finally reappears from the backroom, evidently having decided that he can’t shirk his responsibilities as tavern owner any longer. Unfortunately, this breaks the moment that you and Adam are having, and you both look away from each other as if you’ve been caught doing more than just looking at each other and smiling.

“Kem, this is Adam,” you say hurriedly as Kem joins you behind the bar. “He’s a friend of Seg’s.” 

“Any friend of Seg’s is a friend of mine, unless they’re going to get me in trouble in which case I’ve never met Seg in my entire life, please leave,” Kem says with a straight face. You roll your eyes behind Kem’s back so that Adam can tell that he’s joking.

“Adam’s looking for some new clothes,” you explain, and Kem nods knowingly after giving Adam an appraising look.

“No shit. You wanna see what you can find for him? I’ll send him out back once I’ve heard what he has to say for himself.”

“Have fun with that,” you reply. As you walk away, pushing the door to the storeroom open, you realise how sad leaving Adam’s company has made you feel. You had been enjoying your chat with him, moreso than you’d thought. It had been a long time since you’d spoken to someone at that length, someone so interesting and different. Part of you, surprisingly, was hoping that he would be sticking around.

You sift through some of the shelves, digging out some Kandorian clothing that Kem keeps back here for when some of his more...messy patrons manage to throw up on themselves.

It takes you a while to find a good selection; you pile it all on a free table, and then look up as the door to the back room swings open with a hiss. You’re surprised once again at the relief you feel when you see Adam come through the door.

“Kem bought your story too then, I take it?” you ask him as the door slides shut behind him. 

“I dunno about bought it, not the same way you did, but he’s letting me stay here and wait for Seg, at least.”

“That’s good, I’m glad,” you tell him before realising what you’re saying. “I mean, I’m glad that...uh...”

Adam just chuckles at your awkwardness and looks around you at the table.

“Those for me?” he asks, pointing and shifting the topic of conversation to less embarrassing things. You look back in shock as if the table has just materialized out of nowhere. 

“Oh! Yeah, those are for you. I wasn’t sure what size, so I just grabbed a few of every-” You turn back as you speak and then lose all sense of what you were going to say – Adam has pulled his comfortable grey shirt off, and is walking towards you.

Your eyes are frozen in your head as he approaches, tracing the lines of his body with your gaze. He’s well-built, solid, as if his body is made to match the strong features of his face. He isn’t as lithe or athletic as Seg, but he’s broader to compensate, more power than speed. He could definitely hold his own in a bar brawl, you think. You gulp as he gets closer.

You were right about his hair as well, you notice. His chest and forearms are dusted with a dirty blonde fuzz, and the motion of pulling his shirt over his head has removed the blue head covering as well, unleashing a mess of just-got-out-of-bed hair in the same colour.

He moves past you, and the heat from his torso is so close you can feel it. You clench your fingers under the table as he reaches past and grabs some of the clothes you have arranged for him.

“Cool, thanks,” he says. He either hasn’t noticed, or he’s tactfully ignoring your staring as you shake yourself back to life. 

“Don’t...don’t worry about it,” you reply before scurrying from the room without a second thought. If he’d dropped his pants, you aren’t sure how you would have reacted.

You rest your back against the wall of the tavern, convincing yourself that you’re blocking off entry from unwanted visitors while Adam is changing (not that he seems to mind), and not actually catching your breath and arranging your thoughts.

What was wrong with you? You’d seen shirtless men before. You’d seen plenty of them. So what made Adam, this man from another world that you’d only just met, elicit such a reaction from you?

“I wouldn’t get too involved, if I were you,” says a voice. You look across the room and see Kem giving you a sad smile. “If he’s mixed up in what he says he is, that one’s only going to give us trouble, mark my words.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you call back hurriedly, then berate yourself for both your lie and the unconvincing way you’ve told it.

It’s already far too late for caution. You’ve managed to somehow acquire a crush for the first time in Rao knows how many cycles. 

Your crush history was terrible. First there was Seg, who was always going to be out of your league even before he started seeing Lyta. And now there’s the man who says he’s from outer space and that some giant monster is coming to destroy your planet. 

This is why your love life is so messed up – you sure knew how to pick them.

*****

Seg’s eyebrows knit together as he regards Adam, murder in his eyes. You knew he wanted revenge on Daron-Vex for what he and the rest of the Ranked had done to his family, but this anger, this hatred...it scares you. You want to reach out and touch his shoulder, let him know that you’re all here for him, but it’s too late for that.

“You have two hours. If you don’t come up with anything by then, I’m going to finish what I went up to the Guilds to do.”

With those words, dripping with unspoken meaning, ringing in your ears, you watch as Seg storms out of the tavern, leaving you, Kem, and a newly-dressed Adam to contend with the Science Guild tablet that Seg had acquired.

It sits between the three of you like a dead animal that no one wants to touch. You look at Kem, who shrugs. He doesn’t know the first thing about Guild tech. 

Your father is a repair technician for the Guilds, so you have a rudimentary understanding of how the technology works. This is all going to be on you, you realise. 

Then again, you had wanted to be involved, so now was your chance.

In an effort to delay the inevitable even further, you look up at Adam, expecting him to be staring at the tablet too. Instead, your eyes lock together like puzzle pieces, but you can’t quite make out what the picture is meant to be just yet.

His new digs, as he put it, suit him. You had found him some ashen grey pants and a hooded jacket, which he now wears with the hood pulled up like his old shirt. He seems pleased that the jacket has pockets like his old one did; he’s always fidgeting with his hands, unless he has them rammed into his pockets.

His head covering remains in place too, hiding his hair once again. You’ve done a good job, you think. If you didn’t know any better, you’d have said he’d lived on Krypton his entire life. At least until he opened his mouth.

He’s looking at you expectantly, but there’s more to it than that. Is he...studying you? What mysterious abilities do people from the planet Earth have? Could he read your mind, or your emotions? You feel the blush rising in your cheeks as you think about it, but Adam’s eyes flick away toward the tablet.

“You know how this works? I can just about work Earth tech, and I don’t exactly read Kryptonian.”

You sigh and pull the glowing screen towards you, tapping furiously at some buttons.

“I can work the basics, I think?” you say cautiously, not wanting to get anyone’s hopes up. You flick through some screens, scanning the data as quickly as you can. “So Brainiac is on his way, right? The long range scanners should be able to pick him up if that’s the case.”

Adam chuckles darkly at that, and the sound pulls you away from the screen. Kem has lost interest and has wandered back to the bar, drinks and chatter flying from his hands and lips.

“What?”

Adam shrugs, and you give him a questioning look. “What?” you say again, more insistently this time.

“Well, okay, look. If your planet is so adverse to talking about life elsewhere in the universe, then why do you even have long range sensors? If you think there’s nothing else out there, then what are you looking for?”

You open your mouth to reply, but stop with your thoughts half-formed. That’s...actually a very good point.

“Maybe like meteor showers or incoming asteroids or something?” you counter, but there’s no conviction in your reply.

Adam lapses into smug silence; you’re loathe to admit it, but he’s made a good point. You return to your work, more troubled than ever. The idea of a giant mechanical robot coming to kill you all is bad enough, but it’s still abstract at this point – it isn’t real yet, so it can’t hurt you.

But if what Adam is suggesting is true, then Seg’s parents had died for nothing. Val-El had been executed, and he had been right. What is the government doing? 

No wonder Seg wants revenge.

*****

“There’s nothing out there.” 

Kem breaks the news to Seg, and you can see the colour draining from his face. He had risked everything he had left on Adam, and he had been wrong.

“Nope, that can’t be right. That’s a mistake, check that again,” Adam insists, tapping the tablet with gusto.

But it was right. You had found the data yourself, and checked it more than once before telling Kem. You hadn’t had the heart to tell Adam yourself, and Kem was much better equipped to tell Seg than you were. 

Mostly, it was just because you were a selfish coward. You couldn’t bear to tell Seg the bad news, and the longer Adam could hold out hope that Brainiac was real, the longer he’d spend in the tavern here with you.

Not that you’d said much to him since your little interaction in the back room. He’d soon gotten bored of watching you scroll through sensor data on the tablet and had wandered away to enjoy some more of Kem’s alcohol, but now he was animated again at the prospect of being proven wrong.

As Seg goes to storm away, back to the Guilds to murder Daron-Vex and likely never be seen again, both Adam and Kem intercept him. Kem drags Seg to one side, whispering intently, and you take advantage of the gap in the conversation to pull Adam away as well.

“What?” he says brusquely, looking back at Kem and Seg, deep in their own discussion.

“I just...I just wanted to say I’m sorry, okay? I should have told you what I found. Or didn’t find, I guess. But I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.” You look away, not wanting to meet the anger that was no doubt radiating out of Adam’s face.

Instead, you feel a pressure on your arm and look down to see Adam’s hand there. He’s not squeezing or pulling you towards him; it’s a reassuring gesture, and it’s surprising enough to make you look back.

“This isn’t your fault,” he says softly. His eyes are tender, and his sad smile is resigned. “This isn’t on you. I’m the one that’s meant to be saving the day, but I’m...completely out of my depth here. Thanks, for trying if nothing else.”

The feeling of his hand on your arm is disarming you, and you sputter, “Sure...whatever I can do to help.”

Just then, you see Seg storm past. Whatever Kem said to him clearly hasn’t helped, and Adam’s hand drops away as he hurries over to Kem.

The ghost of his warmth on your arm lingers, and you trace your fingers across it, a small smile playing across your lips.

Then you follow Adam back to Kem, intent on doing everything you can to salvage this shitstorm of a day.

“You look me in the eye, and you tell me that what you’ve been saying is true,” Kem is saying as you join the conversation.

Adam grits his teeth and says, “I swear to God.” There’s more conviction in that statement than you have ever heard from anyone else in your entire life. If you hadn’t already believed him, that one sentence would have changed your mind.

“I believe him too, Kem. Adam wouldn’t have come this far for nothing. Even if we can’t see him, Brainiac’s out there,” you interject, desperate to help, to make up for your earlier failings. Kem looks from Adam to you, searching your face. 

Is he trying to weed out how much of your belief is genuine, and how much comes from the fact that you’re clearly crushing hard on Adam? You hope you can communicate your feelings without saying anything further; the last thing you want to do is explain the difference in front of Adam himself.

Whatever you’ve done, it seems to be enough. Kem turns back to Adam. “Well then we’d better find another way to prove it, or our boy is going to get himself killed.”

You breathe a sigh of relief, and share a look with Adam. The gratitude on his face is enough to make the emotional whirlwind you’re on today worth it.

Now your course of action is clear; prove to Seg that Brainiac is on his way. If the long-range sensors aren’t going to do it, then something else will.

You have to find something else, you think, grabbing the tablet from the bar top where Seg discarded it. You just have to. After all, Adam can’t be wrong...right?

*****

You almost wish that he was. Your earlier conversation about the long-range sensors was the spark that gave you the idea – what about meteor showers?

Now, after discovering that there was in fact a meteor shower only days before, Adam and Kem are getting ready to head into the Outlands to try and see if there are any traces of Brainiac in the wreckage. It stands to reason that, if he really is coming, then he likely won’t arrive with a big fanfare. There’s a much greater chance that he’ll try a stealthy infiltration first.

But that means that one of your best friends is up in the Guilds attempting to murder people, and the other is about to head out into a snowy wasteland with Adam, who is..whatever he is to you right now.

You would never in a million cycles have expected today to go so wrong so quickly when you woke up this morning.

“You’re good to cover the bar, right?” Kem asks as he and Adam head for the doorway.

“Yeah, sure, of course,” you say, with a dismissive wave of your hand. “I’ll be fine. It’s you two I’m worried about. Be careful, okay?”

You give them both a look that tells them exactly what you’ll do to them if they get themselves hurt, or killed. Kem nods; he knows you, knows how protective you are of he and Seg, how worried you get when Seg does something dangerous and/or illegal.

“We will, don’t worry. We’ll be back as soon as we can, I don’t want to spend any more time outside the dome than we have to.” And with that, he leaves. 

Adam shrugs and turns to follow him. You don’t even realise what you’re doing until your hand snakes out and grabs his, his coarse fingertips catching on your comparatively smooth ones.

He looks at your hands, intertwined as they are, and then back up to you.

“Something else?” he asks quietly, and you quickly draw your hand back, embarrassed again.

“No, not really, just...”

“Come on, you can tell me. You trust me, right?”

You nod emphatically, because you do. It’s ridiculous, but you do. You’ve known him all of a few hours, but you do, you do, you do. You trust him almost as much as you do Seg and Kem, who you’ve known for cycles, and there’s no logical explanation as to why.

“Just...be careful. I…want to spend more time with you. Get to know you. I want to hear about Earth, and Superman, and...everything.”

You’re not sure if you sounded more sincere or desperate, but Adam doesn’t even blink as he steps back towards you, closing the distance between you so that you’re almost touching.

“I’m comin’ back. I’ve still got a lot of things to tell you, and besides, I owe you.”

“What? What for?”

“Stickin’ up for me, with Kem, and for thinking of this in the first place. If it weren’t for you, I might already be Zeta Beaming my way back across time and space to some horrible apocalyptic future.”

You definitely blush this time. 

“You come back safe and we’ll just call it even, how’s that?” you counter, and Adam grins again, lips parting. When he smiles, he smiles with his whole face, you notice, like the joy of it infects not just his mouth but the rest of his features as well. It’s a beautiful sight.

“Deal.”

And then he’s gone, out into the wilderness of Krypton. You drag yourself back to the bar and try to immerse yourself in work, but it’s not as easy as it was before. When you were simply drifting through life, content to let each day pass you by unnoticed, you could tune out your surroundings as easy as breathing.

But now, with something to worry about – the well-being of Seg, Kem, and Adam, as well as Krypton as a whole if Brainiac really is on his way – you couldn’t just turn it all off anymore. Your mind reels and bucks as you pass out incorrect drink orders and give out the wrong change for hours, waiting for your friends to return.

Finally, after hours upon agonizing hours, you close the tavern, throw the last few drunks out onto the street, and take a seat. You pour yourself a drink, but can’t seem to bring yourself to drink it. Instead, it swirls around in front of you as all of your terrible thoughts vie for attention in your mind.

What if Seg actually killed Daron-Vex? What if Seg got himself killed instead? What if Kem and Adam fell off a cliff, or ran out of oxygen, or what if? What if, what if, what if?

This is how Kem finds you as he bursts back through the doorway of the tavern, snow still settling in his hair. Adam is nowhere to be found.

Instantly you’re on your feet. “What happened? Is everyone alright?”

“It’s probably best if you just come with me. Adam’ll explain everything, once we get Seg.”

It’s a short sentence, but it tells you everything you need to know. All of the people you care about (and you’re not surprised to see Adam has already made that list), are okay. 

You follow Kem out of the tavern, and collect Seg on his way back from his assassination attempt. He has abandoned his vendetta, at least for now, thanks to the intervention of Nyssa-Vex, he reveals. Thank Rao for that. 

You reconvene in an abandoned house in one of the other Rankless sectors. Adam stands at a table, studying a large egg-shaped device, black and pitted, ribbed along the outside. It looks like a biological shape, something you’d find in nature, but it is clearly mechanical in origin. It has an inherent wrongness about it – it shouldn’t exist, and yet here it is.

You fight the urge to run over to Adam and ask if he’s okay. There are bigger problems right now, you fear. Fears which are well-founded, you soon realise, as Adam explains what it is that he and Kem have found.

“Brainiac sends them out to any planet he deems worthy of conquest, as a forward scout.”

Adam lets the meaning of that sink in as he looks from Seg to Kem, to you. Your eyes widen at the implication, and your stomach churns in turmoil. On the one hand, Adam was right, which you were glad for. But on the other, Brainiac is real and Krypton is in terrible danger.

“Brainiac isn’t on his way – he’s already here.”

As you look around the room at your friends, you feel your heart clench in terror. You almost feel as if this is your fault, as if your wish to change Kandor, for something to happen to make your life a little more interesting, has brought all of this horror crashing down on your heads.

But this is bigger than you. Bigger than Seg, and Kem, even bigger than Adam. This could mean the end of everything you know. And now somehow, together, you have to find a way to stop it.


	2. Strange Proposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x03 - The Rankless Initiative

“You don’t have to come with me.”

“Oh, I do. If I leave you alone out here for five minutes, you’ll have no credits, no clothes, and no dignity before you even have time to blink.”

Adam grins, and you’re almost a hundred percent sure that there’s some kind of spring in his step as he walks along beside you, like he’s secretly glad to have you along even if he’s saying otherwise. “That implies that I have any dignity to begin with.”

“True, true.”

“You’re not meant to agree with me, y’know.”

“How am I supposed to know what passes for dignity on Earth? For all I know, you’re all completely undignified.”

“I feel like there’s an insult in there somewhere, but I can’t find it.” Adam pouts, and you burst out laughing.

You’re not sure where this easy rapport is coming from, but you’re enjoying it. You both lapse into a companionable silence as you weave your way through the crowded corridors of Kandor towards the Labor Index.

You shoot a sly smile across at Adam, and wonder how you’ve managed to find yourself enjoying some time alone with the mysterious Earthman.

Of course you know exactly how, but that doesn’t mean you believe it.

After your impromptu meeting the previous night, you, Seg, Kem, and Adam had all dispersed to try and think of a way to deal with the fact that Brainiac’s sentry was already on Krypton.

Despite racking your brains for hours, both you and Kem had been at a loss for what you could possibly do and, as much as you had wanted to stick around with Seg and Adam, the tavern couldn’t run itself.

So while you and Kem continued to pretend like there an alien robot hadn’t landed on your planet, Adam and Seg had done some digging and found out that the sentry casing they had found had in fact already been activated, and the sentry itself was no longer inside.

As if there hadn’t been enough bad news over the last few days.

Now you had a two-pronged attack plan in motion. While Seg was investigating the Guilds (while no doubt dodging both Nyssa and Lyta) to see if anyone had handed in the sentry, you and Adam were on your way to investigate the Labor Index, Kandor’s all-purpose marketplace.

If you could buy it or sell it, then you could find it at the Labor Index. Unfortunately for Adam, he didn’t know the first thing about Kandorian commerce; so he had appeared at Kem’s tavern asking for directions. In a rare act of non-sarcastic kindness, Kem had taken pity on him and released you from your shift so that you could go along with him as a guide.

Which brought you to your current state of affairs – walking the halls of Kandor with Adam, almost close enough to touch, and wondering how the hell you could be so lucky and so unlucky all at once.

“Is it always like this down here?” Adam asks, finally breaking the silence and waving his arms around to indicate the entirety of Kandor at large.

The hallways are as crowded as always, full of Kandorian Rankless. The walls are dirty, the floors are littered with detritus, and there’s an oppressive weight on everyone’s shoulders wherever you look. Most of the time you’re so used to Kandor that you can ignore it; but Adam has fresh eyes, and isn’t conditioned to ignore the poor circumstances that most of the Rankless find themselves in, and so it is much more obvious to you than normal. It makes you sigh. 

“For the Rankless? Yeah, pretty much. Every day’s a struggle,” you explain, before pointing up above you at the higher levels of the city, “while the Ranked and the Guilds get to live a life of luxury.”

Adam slows as your words sink in and scans his surroundings, looking at the Rankless bustling about their lives with a mixture of pity and sadness in his eyes. You expect disgust, or revulsion maybe, but he surprises you with compassion instead.

“Seems like this kind of thing happens all over. Here in the past, on Earth in the future...You’d think we’d be better than this by now. M’sorry.” 

You nudge him gently with your shoulder. It’s meant to be a friendly gesture, but you catch yourself enjoying the contact a little more than you know you should. “It’s not your fault. It’s just the way Kandor is, you didn’t make it this way. The fact that you care at all says a lot, Adam.

“And besides, you’re here, aren’t you? You came all the way back from your future, across time and space, to save all of these people from Brainiac. You’re doing something so unbelievably selfless, even if none of them know it.”

Adam’s expression clouds over and he purses his lips in thought. He’s avoiding your eyes now, and you poke your head around the side of his face to try and catch his attention again.

“Hey. You okay? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no.” He brushes you off, and his smile is back in place almost instantly. “Can we just get going? If we don’t find this sentry thing fast, my trip might be a complete bust.”

“Sure, of course.”

You won’t say it out loud, but you definitely don’t think that Adam’s trip has been a waste. It’s meant that you’ve met him, which is more than enough for you.

But you can tell that something is still troubling him; his smile may be back, but it’s not as genuine as before; it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and you’re not sure why.

You let the matter drop for now. Adam is right – you have a job to do, and the Labor Index isn’t going to search itself.

*****

The entrance to the Index has always been busy and unpredictable, but having Adam along for this visit gives you a newfound appreciation for just how crowded and overwhelmingly loud the place is.

Due to some weird quirk in the way the Index is organized, the trading floor where the stalls are is only accessible through a narrow passageway that allows a few people in and out at the same time. Of course Kryptonians don’t know how to take turns, so it inevitably descends into a pushing contest until you manage to make your way in or out. 

Basically it’s chaos, but it’s also standing in the way of your hunt for Brainiac’s sentry so you don’t really have a choice but to go through it.

Adam has dropped back slightly behind you, no longer confident enough in his place at your side, like a child hiding their face behind their mother’s legs. You look back over your shoulder and try to give him a reassuring smile. He looks sceptical, and quirks an eyebrow at you.

“How the hell are we meant to find anything in this place?” he shouts over the noise of the crowds.

“Just stick with me! Once we get through the main doors, it thins out a little more!”

“If you say so!”

You feel his presence at your shoulder, and instinctively reach your hand back towards him. Before you realise what you’ve done, he fills it with his own. You know it’s out of necessity, he just doesn’t want to get lost in the throng, but your heart skips a beat in your chest at the contact regardless.

The calluses along his fingers tickle your palms; you resolve to ask him about those when you get a spare moment, if you ever get a spare moment again with Brainiac on the way, anyway. You grip his hand tightly and elbow your way past as many Kandorians as you can manage in one mighty push.

You emerge from the madness with a final squeeze, and you and Adam breathe a sigh of relief as the multitudes close behind you as if you had never been there at all. 

Just as you said, the Index is much quieter away from the entryway as the room opens up. There are stalls lining the walls and customers moving from one to the next, but nowhere near as many as those entering and exiting. You and Adam regroup a few feet into the room, glad to have made it out alive. 

“Never underestimate a Kandorian crowd,” you warn him with a wry look backwards.

Adam meanwhile looks…almost wistful? “Reminds me of trying to get into a Tigers game,” he replies in response to your curious look. “Tigers. Detroit Tigers. Baseball?”

“None of those words mean anything to me.”

Adam rolls his eyes as if you’ve said something enormously offensive and haven’t realised. “You Kryptonians don’t have any fun, do you? Sports! Competition! Fun! God damn, I wish I still had my hat.” 

You cock your head at him in confusion, as if he’s a dog running in circles for no reason; adorable, but not exactly logical. 

“Your hat?”

“You know, my hat. You’re telling me Krypton doesn’t have hats? That sure explains a lot.” He jams his hands into his pockets, and shakes his head in frustration. 

“The thing I had on my head? The one I traded, so I could go traipse around the Outlands and find the sentry? And let me tell you, trading a Tigers hat for a murdering alien robot is not a good deal on any planet.” He says this as if Brainiac is simply being enormously inconvenient by trying to invade your home planet rather than a genocidal monster. The disparity makes you laugh once more.

“The blue head cover, with the silver symbol on it. I know what you mean now. What was it for?”

“It kept my head warm, for a start. And it was like…” He searches the room for something, before spotting a tattered old Guild cape on the edge of one of the stalls. He points at the symbol and snaps his fingers. “It was like representing your Guild, right? One look at my hat, and you’d know I was a Tigers fan.”

“Did you get assigned the Tigers at birth?” You think it’s an innocent question, but the astonishment on Adam’s face tells you that you’re wrong.

“What? No! You get to choose.” He says it as if the very idea of not being able to is foreign to him. “Some people like the Tigers, some people like the Mets, some people don’t like baseball at all. You can choose whoever you want.”

The thought of it makes your eyes water; being able to choose a Guild, rather than having your life mapped out for you by the circumstances of your birth…what a utopia Earth must be. You’re certain that, given the chance, no one would choose to be Rankless. The more you learn about Earth, the more you realise how different to Krypton it really is.

The lapse in conversation gives you pause to realise that your hand and Adam’s are still clasped together. Now that you’re aware of it, it’s the only thing you can concentrate on.

Adam’s eyes follow yours down to your hands, and he pulls away hurriedly.

“Oh, sorry, I…uh, I didn’t wanna lose you in the crowd, y’know?” He withdraws his hand and scratches the back of his neck with it in embarrassment.

“Yeah, sure, of course.” You try to act aloof, as if the contact hadn’t meant anything. But it had; it had meant more than words could say.

You push your feelings away before they interfere with your mission – if you and Adam can find the sentry, you might be able to foil Brainiac before things get worse. You indicate the stalls arrayed before you, pointing to different areas as you explain the layout.

“You’ve got your food items that way, and then your work tools, and your statues of Rao…”

“You guys really need that many of those that you have a whole area just for them?”

“Raoism’s kind of a big deal around here if you haven’t noticed. Since Kandor adopted Rao as the one true God, everyone’s gone a little crazy.”

“But not you?”

You think for a moment, trying to put your thoughts into words. Religion is a touchy subject on Krypton, and especially in Kandor since the Voice Of Rao took over.

“I’ve always thought that, if there really were gods and goddesses out there, they wouldn’t make life so damn hard for everyone. I understand a little adversity, but when you look around and see the imbalance of power between the Rankless and the Guilds...it’s hard to believe in any of them. And if you ask me, the Voice is just another Guild member looking to further his own agenda.”

“I hear ya. Life’s tough enough without thinking it’s all part of some divine plan you can’t change, no matter how hard you try.” 

Adam gets it. You’re a little surprised, but not much; he doesn’t seem like the god-fearing type. He’s far too practical, and you get the feeling that he’s not always a hundred percent on the straight and narrow, either.

Oh good, you’d fallen for another bad boy. You really were predictable. You shake your head, trying to dislodge the thought, and glance back at the rest of the Index.

“That way’s our best bet, I think; it’s kind of the all-purpose area, where you can get...well, anything that doesn’t fit into the rest of the stalls.” You point towards a secluded corner of the room.

“The junk yard. Sounds about right. Let’s split up, we’ll cover more ground that way. Holler if you find anything.” Adam instantly sets off without waiting for an answer, but you dart in front of him.

“Are you going to be okay by yourself? Do you have enough credits? You can borrow some of mine, if you need to.”

“Yeah, sure, credits,” Adam says, not quite believably. “If I see anything, I’ll come find you.”

“Okay. Just be careful, please? The people that run these stalls aren’t always in the best of moods.”

“I’m charming, they’ll love me,” Adam says with a wink before disappearing further into the Index. 

“He’s not wrong,” you whisper to yourself, then head off in the opposite direction. You’re not really sure what you’re looking for – hopefully you’ll know it when you see it.

It’s been a long time since you’ve been to the Index. Mostly you make do with the local food stores nearer to home, and you barely ever have enough credits to indulge yourself in anything special. You didn’t have much in the way of savings; life was far too hard to ever amass anything worth much, but if you had to spend every last credit you had to save Krypton from Brainiac, then so be it.

You wander through the Index looking for anything out of the ordinary. It reminds you of the last time you came, when you were looking for a gift for Seg to commemorate his Name Day. 

You’d found some old Guild symbols that you had taken apart and restructured to form the symbol for the House Of El; even if the Guilds had destroyed all trace of the Els, Seg should still have a way of remembering where he came from, you had reasoned. He’d loved it, and you’d been so proud of yourself that day. 

A few items catch your eye this time, some beautiful sunstone crystals, a vase made from Jewel Mountain rock, but there’s no sign of the sentry; and despite your attempts to concentrate, none of the Index’s treasures hold your attention quite as much as Adam himself. 

You see him a few times, mostly from the back, as you peruse the items on offer. He certainly blends in well now that he looks the part, and he cuts a good silhouette from behind. You catch yourself staring at least twice before you chastise yourself and force your mind back to the task at hand, but it continues to wander, going over everything you know about him, everything you want to ask him when this is all over...

You’re deep in thought about Adam when you hear a crash and a loud yell. Instantly you’re turning towards the source of the sounds only for a streak of a person to dash past and grab you by the hand, pulling you back in your original direction at whiplash speed.

You can tell just by the feel of his hand in yours that it’s Adam, and you’re surprised to find that this doesn’t surprise you. For the second time in as many hours, you’re holding hands with the Earthman.

Okay, so this time was out of necessity, just like last time, but that’s totally not the point right now.

“Adam, what’s going on?” you call as he pulls you around a corner and through the bottleneck of the Labor Index out into the corridors of Kandor proper, all without slowing at all.

As soon as he’s able, he stops and steadies you with both of his hands on your forearms so that you can’t turn away from him. He’s out of breath, as if he was running long before he reached you, and his hair is even more dishevelled and out of place than usual; you just want to reach out and push one of the strands out of his eyes... 

But there’s a triumph in those eyes that reminds you once again of the real reason you had been in the Index in the first place. 

“Did you find it? Did you get the sentry?” you gasp between deep breaths of air, and Adam grins his mischievous grin and pulls a small black object out of the folds of his jacket. 

It’s geometrically perfect, all sharp edges and exact angles; just looking at it sends chills down your spine.

“Oh boy did I. Now, we gotta get outta here, before that guy catches up to us.”

“Did you not have enough credits to pay for it?”

“Yeah, about that. I kinda don’t have any credits at all.”

“So how did you get it?” you ask stupidly, realising the answer as soon as the question passes your lips. Why else would you have had to run?

“Look, let’s get out of here, then we can ask the difficult moral questions, okay?”

You look back over your shoulder quickly, watching as a parting of the crowd reveals a very angry looking stall owner heading right towards you.

“You’re right, let’s go. No more stealing after this though, okay? Even Rankless have to deal with the Sagitari if we break the law, and I don’t like our chances if we have to fight them off.”

“You’d fight off guards for me? I’m touched.” Even in the face of an imminent crisis, Adam can find time for a joke.

“That’s what you took away from that sentence? You Earth people have weird priorities when you’re in danger.”

“That’s more a ‘me’ thing than an Earth thing. Part of my charm,” he replies with a wink. “Now, we should really get going!”

He’s right; the stall owner is getting dangerously close, but you’re suddenly seized with reckless abandon, spurred on by the wink-induced trill in your pulse. “I haven’t seen much of this charm lately, mostly just you getting into trouble and me having to get you out of it.”

“If you get us out of this, I promise I’ll show you some; just you and me, none of this ‘save the planet, save the future’ type stuff,” he says, looking from you to the impending arrival of the angry stall owner and back.

Time slows around the two of you, the rest of Krypton falling away as your heart stops beating and you force out the words, “What, like a date?” before your confidence can leave you.

Adam however doesn’t miss a beat. “Sure, why the hell not.”

Your heart restarts with a slam, and time floods back into place around you. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

You grab his hand and drag him away through the backstreets of Kandor, around corners and up side streets that you know only you are aware of. You whip through the city until both of your heads are spinning, and your lungs are burning, and your feet are aching, but it’s worth it, it’s so worth it.

It’s funny, you think as you slide into Kem’s bar and disappear behind the counter, how stopping planetary annihilation paled in comparison to this guy asking you out on a date. 

Maybe it wasn’t just Earth people who had screwed up priorities in a crisis; but somehow, right this second, with Adam’s hand still in yours and your heart beating a thousand times a minute, you can’t seem to bring yourself to care.

*****

“Fist bumps are totally a thing here, by the way. Kem was just messing with you.”

“What an asshole,” Adam snaps. “Trying to kill my buzz after our successful mission.” He nudges you with an elbow, and you blush. The pride he suffuses his words with doesn’t help, nor does his emphasis on the word ‘our’. 

After retrieving the sentry and returning to Kem’s, you and Adam had shown Seg the fruit of your labor. Now, the three of you are heading to Seg’s secret Fortress to try and work out if it’s as dormant as you hope; just because the casing has been opened doesn’t mean the sentry has actually done anything.

Kem had protested something about having been on shift all day, but there was no way you were going to turn down a chance to see the infamous Fortress and the hologram of Val-El that Seg had told you all about, so you’d hurried after him and Adam without a second thought.

“I’m not sure what that finger thing that you did was, though,” You raise one of yours and show it to Adam to illustrate your point; it just makes him laugh, and he closes his hand over yours to push your finger back down. His touch lingers a little longer than you’d normally expect, and then he looks away; you’re not sure if he’s aware of what he’s doing or not.

“Back on Earth, that’s something we do to someone who pisses us off. It’s like...’you don’t even deserve words any more, you’ve pissed me off to the point that I’m just gunna flip you the bird’.”

“Flip...the bird? If I haven’t said this already, I’m saying it now – Earth is weird.”

“And Krypton doesn’t have hats, so I’d say maybe you should look at your own weird planet before you go in on mine,” Adam counters.

“Guys, can we focus, please?” Seg asks, exasperated. “We need to get to the Fortress and sort this thing out. Preferably before Brainiac turns up and destroys the planet, so maybe we can table the discussion about Earth swearing and come back to it when we’re not in danger, okay?”

“Sorry, Seg,” you and Adam chant, completely in unison and completely unplanned, which just makes you both laugh out loud. Seg throws his hands up into the air in defeat and continues on his way towards the skimmer port. You share a look with Adam, who returns your barely suppressed smile, and follow quickly after him.

Rounding the corner however, you find Seg at a complete standstill as he peers up into the sky. A fleet of Sagitari cruisers hover above you, and a booming voice echoes out of their speaker systems.

“Attention, Rankless citizens. This quadrant is being evacuated. Sector 19 residents are hereby evicted. Prepare to be scanned and processed.”

As you watch, Sagitari descend from their ships, landing lightly and pointing their weapons at the cowering Rankless around you. This kind of force is completely unnecessary against unarmed civilians; what are they hoping to achieve other than mass panic?

One of the Sagitari closest to you is familiar – it’s Lyta-Zod, so of course Seg heads right toward her, pushing through the frightened crowds with you and Adam trailing behind. 

The closer you get, the more the reckless brutality of the Sagitari becomes evident. All around, Rankless who have done nothing more than try to live their normal day to day lives are being struck with batons, or electrocuted with shock sticks. Screams and shouts fill the air, and you’re jostled around by a mass of bodies yet again. 

Unbidden, as if triggered by the sight of a huge crowd, your hand snakes out from your side and grabs Adam’s, keeping you both together against the tide of people around you. He squeezes back to reassure you that he isn’t going anywhere, but the situation is looking bleak.

Seg and Lyta lock eyes across the square, but there doesn’t seem to be anything she can do to spare you from this madness. The Sagitari are under her command, but she can’t be seen to be playing favourites or her relationship with Seg might be revealed, which would be bad for them both.

A faceless Sagitari steps forward, yanking people at random out of the crowd and forcing them to submit to a facial scan before removing them to another sector. The proximity of it spurs you to action.

“Adam, if they find the sentry, everything could get even worse,” you caution, and he nods gravely. 

“Lemme talk to Seg; there’s gotta be something we can do here. And besides, if they scan my ugly mug I might just get shot for being an alien on a planet that doesn’t believe in aliens.”

The fact that Adam could be in mortal danger hadn’t even crossed your mind; your blood freezes in your veins in response to his words, and now you’re even more determined to get him, Seg, and yourself, out of here.

Adam’s way ahead of you however. He reaches forward and grabs Seg by the shoulder. “Hey, let’s get outta here. Let’s go!”

Seg whirls, but you can tell by the set of his jaw that he isn’t going anywhere. You’ve seen that defiant look on his face enough times to know that. Instead, he thrusts the sentry towards Adam and shoves him back towards you in turn.

“Listen to me – take this. We can’t risk it falling into Sagitari hands, alright? Get it back to the Fortress, start working with Val.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that? Look around you, Seg!”

“I don’t know! Find a way!” Seg turns to leave, but Adam isn’t giving up that easily. He grabs Seg’s shoulder and pulls him back, probably more roughly than he intended, since Seg looks furious as he yells, “Adam, go!”

The crowd surges then, cutting you and Adam off from Seg as he stalks towards Lyta to find out what in Rao’s name is going on.

Adam looks at you in dismay, holding the sentry tightly in one hand while the other drums a rhythm on his leg until he realises what he’s doing and jams it into his pocket.

“Well, now what do we do?”

The crowds are beginning to get restless, their morbid curiosity about what the Sagitari are doing mixing badly with their need to escape persecution; you can tell that something bad is going to happen soon, no matter what Lyta’s intentions are. You need to get out of here right now.

“If we can get to a skimmer, can you get us to Seg’s Fortress?” you ask him.

“You mean like pilot? I can just about drive a car, I’ve got no chance with a flying spaceship thing.”

“I have no idea what a car is, but I can fly the skimmer, don’t worry about that. I meant do you know the way?”

“Yeah...yeah, I think so. I didn’t know you could fly one of those things.” He sounds impressed, and your heart swells in your chest. You take a deep breath to steady yourself as a plan begins to form.

“Okay. Okay. We can do this. Just follow me, and stay close, okay?”

“You got it.”

You take off down a side alley, Adam close behind you. The sound of Sagitari boots stomping through the streets of Kandor battles with the sound of your own heartbeat as you weave and slink through the back passages of the city, taking the long way around to the nearest skimmer port. 

It feels like the journey takes an eternity, all of which is spent with a tightness in your stomach that makes you want to vomit from nerves, but eventually you find yourselves exactly where you need to be, with only one guard between you and the closest skimmer. 

You crouch behind a row of shipping crates, Adam at your back. He’s been completely silent the entire way, trusting you to get him where he needs to go. His breath is heavy on the back of your neck, sending distracting tingles across your skin, and that’s to say nothing of the hand he’s placed on your back to steady himself.

“When the guard moves, we go, got it?” Your voice is barely a whisper, but Adam is close enough that he has no trouble hearing you.

“Got it,” he whispers back, his mouth right beside your ear. Every fibre in your body is screaming, but you ignore them all and glare at the Sagitari, trying to block out everything that might stop you from completing your mission.

The guard completes his patrol and spins on his heel, beginning to wander back the way he came. You waste no time and dart out from behind your cover, leaping into the thankfully open cockpit of the skimmer as soundlessly as you can.

Immediately you begin pre-flight checks, pressing buttons and hoping that the skimmer doesn’t make any loud noises to attract attention.

“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Adam hisses from the co-pilot’s seat, eyes fixed on the retreating back of the Sagitari guard.

“Nope, but I think I know more than you, so I don’t think you’re in a position to complain,” you hiss back. You know Adam can’t argue with that, since he doesn’t reply as you continue to hit buttons as quickly as you can.

“Okay, here we g-” you begin before being unceremoniously tackled to the floor of the skimmer with a thump.

You look up and Adam’s face fills your vision, so close that you can’t even see the skimmer roof behind him.

“Adam, what-”

“Sssh! The guard’s coming back!” 

You snap your mouth shut immediately, and listen intently to the footsteps coming your way. You can’t bear to think about what might happen if you’re caught, so you choose instead to focus on what’s in front of you – namely, Adam.

He’s close enough that you can smell him for the first time; it’s a mixture of sweat from all the running and more earthy tones, as if he spends a lot of time with plants or soil. It’s a rare smell to find in Kandor, outside of the plant production areas, and it’s tinged with an unfathomable edge, no doubt the smell of Earth. Even now, clothed in Kryptonian fabric, he still smells of home.

You can count the individual hairs that dot his chin like brush bristles, trace the line of his lips with your eyes, even count the individual eyelashes above those pale blue irises that are staring straight at you, pinning you to the floor.

You can feel his heart beating, hammering out a desperate pattern on his chest which is pressed against your own since neither of you dare move just yet. The heat of his body so close to yours is intoxicating, and you yearn to act on what your own body is telling you, but now is neither the time nor the place.

Instead you both lay perfectly still, eyes locked together as you listen intently. 

“I think he’s gone,” Adam whispers. It could have been minutes later or days, you have no idea how long you’ve been staring at Adam’s face. You know it’s been long enough to realise that he’s the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen, but that’s not exactly a quantifiable measurement.

“We should probably get up and get going,” you tell him, but you can’t bring yourself to move.

“Yeah, we should do that.” He doesn’t move either.

It’s only when the sentry drops out of Adam’s pocket and onto the floor of the skimmer that you both finally drag your eyes away from each other. It’s a stark reminder of what you need to be doing, and it’s enough to make Adam roll off of you and back into his seat after picking it back up and shoving it deeper into his jacket.

You scramble into the pilot’s chair and press the remaining few buttons to activate the skimmer. The cockpit hatch flips downwards, sealing itself with a hiss, and you point the vehicle out towards the edge of Kandor’s protective dome.

“And you’re sure you know what you’re doing?” Adam asks yet again. 

You don’t dignify that with an answer this time and just punch the accelerator control so that the skimmer shoots forward. As it arcs towards the dome, technology in the skimmer’s nose causes a small gap to open up in the shield to allow you to exit, and you speed out over the Outlands proper.

Snow soon settles on the windshield, and the skimmer’s engine begins to protest, but you can’t take your mind off the mission; you’ve already been distracted enough today.

“You wanna head over that ridge, and then keep going for a little bit,” Adam says, pointing at a dark shape on the horizon.

“Gotcha.”

Adam shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Do you want to talk about...what just happened?”

“We should,” you confirm. “But not right now. Now we need to get the sentry to Val, but later, definitely. Is that okay?”

“Later. Yeah, I can do later. My schedule’s pretty free. Save the world at three, discuss awkward floor encounters at four.”

You can’t help but smile, even with what happened between you hanging like a bad smell in the already stuffy air of the skimmer cockpit. But for now, you point the skimmer in the direction that Adam indicated and push the accelerator even harder. Your feelings can wait a little while longer.

*****

You’d heard about the Fortress from Seg, but nothing he could have told you would have prepared you to actually set foot inside it.

Adam is clearly already over it, because he heads straight for the extremely lifelike hologram of Val-El that has its back to you as you walk in, but you stop on the threshold, paralysed with amazement.

The cavern is enormous, hewn from the very rock of the mountain itself, a beautiful crystal blue colour that inspires peace and calm within you; something you could do with a lot of, after the stress of the last few hours.

Adam and Val are huddled around the main computer terminal, but there’s scanning equipment and half-finished experiments on every clear surface, no doubt left undisturbed since the real Val was executed.

Across the room is the cape that Seg had told you about, its crimson red a massive contrast to the rest of the room, with the symbol of the House of El emblazoned on the back in bright yellow. The bottom of the cape looks ragged however, as if the threads have been unpicked and it has slowly begun to unravel. 

This is where Adam finds you minutes later, staring at the edges as they rescind. If you look close enough, you feel like you can see them disappearing before your very eyes.

“Hey.”

You turn back to him, his face grave as he blurts out the bad news before you even get a chance to say anything.

“The sentry was inactive, like we thought. But according to Val, that means it’s already found a host. Seg’s on the case, he thinks he knows who it’s infected, but he doesn’t have a lot of time.”

You can’t believe what you’re hearing – after everything you’ve done today, everything you’ve risked, it could all be for nothing?

“We have to go back, we have to help Seg,” you say, automatically heading towards the skimmer, but Adam stops you instantly.

“If we go back,” he says, speaking slowly to emphasis his point, “even if we got back in time, which we won’t, we wouldn’t be able to do anything. Seg said that the whole thing with the guards, the Rankless Initiative or whatever they’re calling it, has gotten worse. There’re riots in the streets; it’s not pretty.

“If we go back, we’ll just get in the way, and we’ll both be in even more danger. It’s safer for us to just stay here and let Seg do what he needs to do. I know it’s hard, I don’t wanna just sit here and do nothing either, but we don’t really have much choice.”

“You are both welcome to stay as long as you need,” interjects Val. “It’d be nice to have the company, really.”

Under normal circumstances, you’d wonder if a hologram could feel lonely, or if he’s just been programmed that way, but that’s the least of your worries right now. Adam is right; sitting here and doing nothing goes against everything you stand for – but he’s also right about what would happen if you went back. As loathe as you are to admit it, Seg’s on his own.

But you trust him; you know he’ll do everything he can to set this right. 

“Alright, we’ll stay. For now. The second we can do something to help though, we’re going straight back to Kandor.” Your tone brooks no argument, but Adam raises his hands in agreement immediately.

“You got it.”

You’re not sure what you want to do. For a minute or two you pace, while Adam sinks onto a step and holds his head in his hands. Val continues working, unperturbed. You wonder if that’s in his programming too, or if he’s also worried about his grandson and this is just how the original Val-El would have coped.

You want to scream, or shout, or break something – feeling useless is the worst feeling in the world, and there’s literally nothing you can do but wait.

Finally, you slide onto the step beside Adam, staring blankly at the Fortress entranceway, close enough that your leg touches his. He doesn’t move away. Neither does he move away when you find his hand with yours and hold it as tightly as you can, a steadfast anchor in the whirling storm that has become your life.

And that’s how you both stay, unmoving, unspeaking, until Seg appears holding the equally unmoving body of Rhom, the sentry’s unlucky host body.

But even then only Adam can bring himself to move. He crowds the diagnostic table that Seg places Rhom on, he and Seg on one side and Val the other as he scans her body for evidence that she can be saved.

You’re still sitting stock still on that step when Val announces his final conclusions. Adam whirls, a look of utter defeat on his face as he glances at you. You can feel a single solitary tear making its way down your face, but you can’t even bring yourself to wipe it away.

Despite everything that you and your friends did today, the sentry was still successful. The signal has been sent, and the full might of Brainiac is now focused on Krypton.


	3. Strange Developments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x04 - The Word Of Rao

The mood is sombre in Kem’s tavern, despite the usual high spirited chatter and excited patrons around you. It’s as if the four of you are in your own little bubble of sadness while the rest of Krypton moves on around you, indifferent to everything that has happened over the past few days. Which it is – everyone but the four of you remains blissful ignorant of the threat Brainiac presents.

You and Kem mope around behind the counter, passing drinks out as needed but without your usual enthusiasm or cheery smiles.

Adam sits with his back to you all, jaw clenched, but whether with rage or disappointment you’re not sure. 

Seg leans up against the bar top; he isn’t drinking, instead focusing on the little girl sitting a few feet away; Ona, Rhom’s daughter. 

None of you know how to approach her. How do you tell someone that their mother is essentially dead, and that they’re all alone in the world?

Truth be told, you don’t know what you’d say to her even if you could bring yourself to do it. You had never been massively close with Rhom or Ona; they had always been more Kem’s friends than yours. 

They’d always show up now and then; they had never had much money to spend in the tavern, but they had always had a smile and a kind word for you, usually followed with some platitude about Rao and how everything would turn out right eventually.

Honestly, that had rubbed you the wrong way more than once. It was hard enough to grit your teeth and smile when Rhom did it, but hearing Ona spout the same nonsense just made things worse.

How could they think that Rao, or the Voice, or whoever, would save them? It wasn’t going to happen. Life was always going to be the same, and there wasn’t anything any of you could do about it. The sooner you came to terms with that, the better. 

After a while, you had stopped spending time with them at all. Rhom never questioned you on it, and Kem sensed your unease around them; he had never tried to get you all together again after a certain point.

Look where their devotion had gotten them. Rhom may as well be dead, and Ona was all alone. And yet she still clung to that statue of Rao like it would suddenly come to life and change everything for her.

Now though, you almost wish that you had spent more time with them – maybe then you’d know the words to say to make this all right again. Maybe you’d know which bit of the Book Of Rao would cheer Ona up, and make her future feel bright again.

Maybe some of that unending optimism would be able to revive your own heart, and make you feel as though this fight was still worth fighting.

Instead, all you have is alcohol and sadness, and too much of both to go around. As you look around you, at the sight of your friends united in your sorrow, a thought occurs to you.

Maybe Ona and Rhom had the right idea after all, even if their faith is misplaced – if you couldn’t rely on Rao, then maybe there was something else you could rally behind in your time of need. Maybe you could all lean on each other, and get through this together.

Just as inspiration strikes you, Kem makes a move. He can’t bear to sit here and see Ona either, a constant reminder of your failures, and makes an excuse about needing to do his rounds.

Surprisingly, Adam is right behind him. “I’m gunna go think about smoking,” he says, and disappears without any further comment.

As you turn to Seg, the last person left standing, he slips away without a word, sliding down next to Ona; he has more courage than the rest of you combined. Of all your friends, he’s the least likely to need encouragement from you. 

The other two on the other hand...

“Right, bar’s closed for an hour!” you shout to a chorus of dismayed drinkers, but you’re barely listening, tracking your friends’ movements as you are. “Back in a bit, people! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!”

With that done, you slip out from behind the bar, two drinks in hand, as disgruntled patrons file out of the room shooting you dirty looks as they go. You don’t care; Kem’s meagre profits can afford to take a hit, but his morale can’t.

You hone in on him in the corner of the room. He’s so depressed that he hasn’t even noticed what you’ve done. Instead, he’s sunk into one of the booths and is staring at his hands. Or, more accurately, through his hands, through the table, probably through the planet’s core and out into space the other side.

You place one of the drinks in front of him with a clink and slide into the seat across from him. He doesn’t look up.

“You need to suck it up, mate.”

This is probably the last thing Kem expects you to say, and so you actually manage to get a reaction out of him. He looks up with fury in his eyes.

“Where do you get off, telling me something like that?” he shouts indignantly, but you just push the drink closer to his hand and sip yours as if he’d asked you the time.

“I get it, Kem. I do. Everything’s gone to shit and it’s all spiralling out of control. But we can’t just sit here and mope – there’re still things we can do. All of us. Together. 

“Right now, you, me, Adam, and Seg are the only ones that know anything about Brainiac, so it’s up to us to deal with it, right? We can’t do that sitting around here feeling sorry for ourselves.”

“And where, pray tell, are we supposed to start? If you hadn’t noticed, we have exactly zero leads on anything right now.”

“Right now Ona needs you, and that takes priority over anything else. Seg’s with her, but you’re the one she really needs.”

Kem raises a hand as if he’s going to interrupt, or tell you that you’re wrong, but decides against it. Instead, he takes a long swig of his drink and looks at you over the rim of the glass. 

“When did you get so bloody clever?” he asks. You just shrug.

“Probably from watching you and Seg, I expect.”

“Ha bloody ha.”

“It’s true though; you’re the closest thing Ona has left to family and, as strong as that little girl is, she can’t face the world on her own.” 

Kem finishes his drink and pulls himself to his feet; only then does he look around and notice that his tavern is empty aside from you, Seg, and Ona.

“Where is everyone? There were loads of people here a minute ago.”

You look sheepish and shrug. “No idea. Wasn’t me. But, since it’s quiet, you mind if I run out for a sec? There’s one more stop on my motivation speech tour.”

Kem cocks his head; he knows when you’re lying, but he’s not about to call you out on it, not when he could probably do with the break anyway. 

“You’re going after Adam, aren’t you?”

“...Maybe.” 

He sighs, but waves you away in spite of his reluctance. “Go on, go. Just don’t give him any more free drinks, he already owes me a bloody fortune!” he calls, but you’re already halfway out the door.

You catch up with Adam in the courtyard nearest to the tavern. He, like most of the Rankless, seems to like having the open sky above him more than the oppressive ceilings of the interior buildings, even if the open sky is actually just the force shield, miles above you all.

He’s leaning against a wall, one foot propping him up and the other placed flat against it, an empty cardboard container in his hand that he’s lamenting sadly.

You sidle up to him and touch his shoulder as gently as you can with your own. He looks up and nearly drops his little box in surprise.

“What’re you doing here? I thought, the bar, y’know-” He’s even more adorable when he’s flustered.

“Don’t worry about that; I’ve got all the time in the world to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, that might not be that much time at all with Brainiac on the way,” he replies sardonically. He crumples the cardboard box and stuffs it back into his jacket.

“Okay, that right there? That needs to stop,” you tell him firmly.

“What? The smoking? I’ll have to quit anyway, I haven’t got any left, and that’s something else you guys don’t seem to have on this ass backwards planet.”

“This ass backwards planet that you’re trying so hard to save?” 

He looks as if he’s going to retort, but it dies in his throat. Instead he just makes a frustrated noise and leans his head back against the wall.

“I didn’t mean the smoking, whatever that is. I meant the feeling sorry for yourself. You need to stop it.”

“Why? Why should I?” His voice is rising, but it’s more anger at himself than at you. “We failed. Brainiac’s on his way here, and he’s going to destroy the planet, so Superman’s never going to born, and that means that the future’ll go to shit as well.”

“None of which is your fault,” you finish for him. He looks at you in disbelief, and you plough onwards since he doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“Listen. You came from another world, from the future, to stop Brainiac. You did that. You didn’t have to, but you did. And now you’re here, fighting to save a planet that you have no real attachment to, because it’s the right thing to do.

“So what if we didn’t stop the sentry? So what if Brainiac’s on the way? We can still find a way to stop him. There’s still time. We may have lost the battle, but the war’s far from over. And I think, deep down, if you really thought that you couldn’t change things, you’d have gone back home already instead of hanging around here.”

You let your words sink in, and Adam looks as if he’s in pain as he tries to make sense of what you’ve said.

“You called yourself a superhero, right? Well, I don’t know about super, but heroes are still a thing on Krypton, even if they’re just in stories like Nightwing and Flamebird.”

Adam’s eyes light up at the mention of the two gods from the old religious texts, as if he knows the names from somewhere; but he can’t, surely. He still doesn’t say anything, as if he’s scared to interrupt you in mid-flow.

“Heroes are people that fight the good fight, even when it looks hopeless, because they know that they should. And here you are, against all the odds, with nearly everything working against you, still fighting that fight. We may have lost yesterday, but, at least I think, we still have some work to do. And I don’t know about you, but I know I’m willing to do whatever it takes. I know Seg is. We’re not about to give up our planet without a fight, and we’d like you standing next to us as we do it.

“Okay, I’m done. You can say something now,” you finish lamely. Adam’s eyes are filled with...admiration? Astonishment? Pity? You’re not sure. You wait awkwardly for him to call you crazy, or laugh at you, but instead he just smiles a genuine smile, pushes himself off the wall and stands in front of you, ready to get back to it.

“That was a Superman level speech if I ever heard one. You sure you’re not an El?”

“Definitely not, but I’ll take the compliment.”

“You’re wrong about one thing though. I do have attachments here. There’re people I care about on Krypton, loathe as I am to admit it. Seg. Even Kem, little asshole that he is.” And then he locks eyes with you, closes the gap between you and whispers two more words directly into your ear, words that make you hold your breath. 

“And you.”

“Me?” you somehow manage to whisper back. 

“Yeah. You.”

“Adam, I-” you begin, but he’s so close that your brain doesn’t seem to want to work any longer, and as you stand there, mouth half-open, words half-formed, he fits his lips to yours and you forget anything and everything you wanted to say.

His hand traces along the back of your neck, behind your head, tilting it towards him so that he can intensify the kiss. You mirror him, burying your hand in that unruly hair of his, that hair that has just ached to have your fingers running through it since you first laid eyes on it. It’s soft, like freshly spun silk; it feels almost as divine as his mouth on yours.

You’d often wondered about your first kiss when you were younger, back when you’d still thought about things like that. You’d wondered if it would be magical, or if it would be clumsy and awkward. You’d wondered if you’d remember it forever, or if it’d be one in a long parade of kisses that all melded into one memory.

You’d wondered if it’d be with Seg, more than once.

Now here you were, having your first kiss, and it was nothing like you’d ever thought it might be because never, in a thousand thousand daydreams, had you thought it would be with a man from another planet, another time, another species.

And now you wonder how you could have wanted it to be anything other than what it is right now, with Adam.

It’s over almost as soon as it begins, but it is burned into your memory for the rest of eternity. 

One moment you’re kissing, lost in the sensation of each other, and then the next Adam is gone, as if he had never been there at all. You touch your lips lightly with the tips of your fingers and head back to the tavern, smiling to yourself as you walk.

*****

You’ve never been the most subtle of people, but you’re trying your hardest to keep the smile off your face as you walk back into the tavern a little while later.

A few minutes after you, Adam wanders in looking as if nothing had happened at all, avoiding your eyes even as you smile at him. It’s a strange reaction, you think; most people don’t ignore someone they’ve just kissed. Maybe that’s how they do it on Earth? Not that you have much experience kissing Kryptonians either, but still.

As if Adam acting cagey wasn’t bad enough though, the look on Kem and Seg’s faces is like a bathtub of cold water on your good mood.

“What? What happened?” Adam asks, and the four of you gather around the bar once again. Adam arranges himself so that he isn’t looking at you.

“I could ask you the same question,” Kem says with a sly eyebrow raise, “but now really isn’t the time.” Instead, he tells you of the false charges that are being raised against Lyta, how she is being held responsible for the failure of the Rankless Initiative and the mess at the communications hub that Rhom had wrecked while under the sentry’s control.

“For Rao’s sake, what do the council think they’re doing?” you ask when Kem is finished, slamming your hand onto the bar in frustration. Lyta wasn’t exactly a friend of yours, but no one deserved to die for something that wasn’t even their fault.

“That is some bullshit,” Adam agrees, leaning over the bar. “What’re you going to do?”

“Set a plan in motion, but I need a sure way to prove Lyta’s innocence,” Seg responds, voice filled with determination.

“Well, I talked to Val, and after a very graphic biology lesson, he told me that Rhom's not doing so well, so it looks like we are running out of time.”

That explains where Adam went after he left you, and why he had arrived back after you despite leaving before.

Seg walks away then, and Adam trails after him as they continue their discussion as if you and Kem aren’t even there at all.

“Well, that’s rude,” Kem admonishes, but you can kind of understand even if it does hurt a little to be left out.

“They’ve got bigger problems right now than us; I’m sure they’ll catch us up once there’s something we can do to help.”

“Speaking of catching up, something you want to tell me?” Kem waggles his eyebrows suggestively and you swat him with one of the rags you use to wipe the bar with.

“None of your business.”

“Really? Because you certainly came back smiling.”

“Kem, I swear I’ll drop kick you from here to Argo City if you carry on.” You can feel your mouth smiling against your will though, and that tells Kem all he needs to know. He barks out an accusatory laugh and slaps you on the arm as he passes.

“About damn time. Although, Adam? Really? All of Krypton wasn’t enough for you, you had to go for the alien?”

You’re about to reply with something suitably scathing when you hear a crash from the opposite end of the bar; it’s a familiar noise, and it can only mean one thing – a fight’s just broken out.

“Hold that thought. No, wait, don’t, please forget it entirely while I deal with this.”

You dash across the room and look around for the perpetrators, but there’s no one to be found. Until you look down and see Adam collapsed in a heap beneath you at the end of the bar, that is.

Instantly you’re at his side, vaulting over the bar despite Kem’s protests about putting your feet on it.

“Adam! Hey, Adam, are you okay? What happened?” You shake him by the shoulder, resisting the urge to touch his face, and he blinks rapidly as he regains consciousness.

His left cheek is blossoming into a mottled purple bruise, and his lip is busted open, spilling blood down the front of his jacket. He’s groggy but coherent as he props himself up against the bar. 

“Damn it, Seg,” he says, spitting a glob of blood onto the floor and wincing as he wipes his mouth.

“Wait, Seg did this?” You can’t believe your ears; what could he possibly be thinking?

“He’s got some crazy idea about how giving Rhom to the council will convince them that Lyta’s innocent. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wasn’t having any of it and he socked me. Ah, that stings.” He pokes his own cheek, instantly regretting it.

“Look, let me get you to the back room. We’ve got a med kit back there, and I can patch you up a bit while we think about what to do next.”

Adam looks like he wants to complain, but the stern look in your eye does the trick once again. He extends a hand and you clasp his forearm, dragging him up onto his feet.

You wave to Kem, who rolls his eyes and mutters something under his breath but doesn’t try to stop wither of you as you disappear into the back of the tavern.

Adam sinks onto a spare bar stool and dabs at his lip, while you dig out a plastic box filled with medical supplies.

“Seg’s out of his mind if he thinks telling the council about Brainiac will help us. They’ll have him thrown into the loony bin and then we’ll never see him again.”

“Loony bin?” You flip the light on and gauge the damage to Adam’s face; it’s going to bruise whatever you do, but you can probably stop most of the swelling. There’s also blood dripping all down the front of his shirt; he can’t walk around like that without raising suspicion. “And you’re going to have to take that off.”

“Like jail for crazy people. Are you sure?”

“If a Sagitari sees you with blood on your shirt, he’s going to assume that you did something you weren’t supposed to and take you away. And then I’ll never see you again either.” That last sentence comes out more sorrowful than you’d intended, and Adam notices right away.

“Look, I’m sorry about before, okay?” He removes his jacket and yanks his undershirt off over his head with a sharp intake of breath as the fabric jostles his tender face.

Once again you’re alone in the back room of the tavern with a mysterious shirtless man. Only this time, things have changed; now, there’s a lot more between you than there was before. Or at least, you thought there was.

“Sorry? Why are you sorry? I’m not sorry.” 

“I just...don’t want to give you the wrong idea, okay? Ow, Jesus!” He flinches as you dab at his lip with a wad of blood clotting gel. Instantly the bleeding stops, and Adam sucks his lip in confusion, giving you control over the conversation.

“I didn’t get the wrong idea. You said that I was a reason for you to care about Krypton. And then you kissed me. Seems pretty straight forward to me – you like me. And I like you. So, what’s the problem?”

Adam winces again, but this time it’s not with pain. “It’s just...I’m from another world. Another time. There’s only so far this can go, right? Like, if we save Krypton and stop Brainiac, then I have to go home. And you know I can’t take you with me, the Zeta-Beam device only carries one.

“Or we don’t stop Brainiac, and we all die horribly, in which case whatever this is won’t go any farther anyway.”

You wet a cloth with hot water and wipe the dried blood away from Adam’s chin. He doesn’t move away, not even as you trace the blood’s path down his face, along his jawline, into the nape of his neck. 

In fact, he reaches up and covers your hand with his, holding the cloth in place as he draws it back up to the bruise on his cheek. You’re acutely aware that you’re drawing closer to him again, looking down into his waiting eyes.

“Is this meant to stop me getting the wrong idea?”

“I dunno, is it working?”

“Definitely not.”

“Good.” He reaches up with his other hand and pulls you down to meet him, another kiss passing between the two of you. There’s a coppery tang in his mouth from the blood, but it just tastes all the sweeter because of it.

Talk about mixed signals.

“If this is wrong, then I’ve never been happier to be wrong,” you whisper as the kiss ends. You rest your forehead against Adam’s, eyes shut tight as if he’ll be gone once again if you open them.

“And I’m almost always wrong, so it’s nice for wrong to be right for a change. But as much as I’d love to just stay here like this, we need to get to the Fortress, preferably before Seg gets to Rhom and takes her away.”

You know he’s right, but that doesn’t make it any easier to force your eyes open and pull away from him.

“We’re not done, you know. This conversation is far from over, Strange,” you tell him as authoritatively as you can, and Adam grins at your faux-seriousness.

“Let me find you a shirt and then we can go. I’m pretty sure I can get us to the Fortress before Seg, as long as the skimmer port’s still unguarded.”

“I could just wander around like this, if you prefer?” 

You throw a crumpled up shirt at Adam then, right into his face, and he falls off of the stool spread-eagled onto the floor as if he’s just taken a serious war wound.

“Ugh, you got me! So unsportsmanlike, attacking a wounded man!”

“Get up, Adam. We’ve got a world to save.”

*****

Thanks to the Rankless Initiative the Sagitari are currently in disarray, which makes sneaking back into a skimmer far easier than it had been the previous day.

You and Adam streak out across the sky once again and disappear through the force dome into the blizzards of the Outlands. Then you set a course into the auto-pilot system, making sure that it’s also set to wipe itself once you’re back in Kandor, and then turn to your co-pilot, who has his feet up on the dashboard of the ship and his hands in his pockets.

“So.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t play coy with me; we’ve got a good while before we get to the Fortress, even at top speed, so there’s no escaping me now. We need to talk about this.”

“Talk about what? I dunno what you’re talking about.” He’s messing around, which you’d usually find amusing, but you really do want to work out exactly what this is between you.

“You know exactly what. Can you be serious, just for a second?”

Adam looks conflicted, like he wants to carry on playing dumb, but eventually he draws his legs in and turns his chair so that he’s facing you.

“Look, I’m sorry. Again. This isn’t easy for me. It’s not like I can pass you a note saying ‘Do you like me, check yes or no’.”

“I think you’re over-thinking this just a little.” You lean forward, until you’re hanging off the edge of your seat, as close to Adam as you can get without getting up.

“Do you like me? Yes, or no?”

He grins and looks away, shaking his head. “You’re a dork.”

“I assume that’s Earth-speak for ‘yes’?”

“It’s not that simple!”

“Then explain it to me!”

Adam clenches his jaw as if he’s chewing over his next words before he gives them to you. You sit back, crossing your arms and tapping your foot impatiently, but you refuse to say anything else; you don’t need the last word here, you just want the words that are said to have meaning.

“Okay. Okay. I think it’s pretty clear that you like me. And I like you, if that wasn’t obvious.”

He’d had his tongue in your mouth less than an hour earlier, so it was, but you don’t interject, just nod your head and let him continue.

“And even if we discount the whole ‘I have to go back to the future’ thing, there’s still the fact that we’ve known each other for what, days at this point? 

“What if this is all just because we’re in close proximity, and we don’t have anyone else? Like how people fall in love with the people they work with, because they’re the people they see every day?”

“Who said anything about love?” You’d certainly thought about it, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to go that far just yet. A crush was one thing – love was something else entirely.

“I was being rhetorical. I mean, I think my feelings are real. But is it fair to act on them when we haven’t had time to learn about each other, really get to know one another? What’d you know about me, really?”

Adam also sits back, clearly finished. He takes one hand out of his pocket and drums his fingers on the dashboard, fidgeting again.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Please.”

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself. You’d never really talked about your feelings before; Kem wasn’t much for it, and the very idea of discussing your love life with Seg made you want to cry. But if you wanted this to go anywhere, then you had to talk to Adam which, up until now, had been the easiest thing in the world.

“I don’t know what Seg or Kem might have told you about me, but I don’t...fall very easily. I spent a really long time wishing I could be with...someone, and then they got with someone else, so I’d kind of given up hope of ever feeling that way again.”

“You mean Seg, right?” Adam raises an eyebrow as if he understands the attraction, but you don’t welcome the interruption.

“This is hard enough, please, just let me finish?”

“You got it. Sorry.” He mimes running a zipper along his lips and throwing away the key.

“When I saw...Seg, okay, yes, it was Seg, with Lyta, it really hurt me. I’d never told him how I felt, so I had no reason to feel bad about it, but I did. And I’ve met a lot of Kandorians in my life, but I’ve never felt the same way about any of them as I did about Seg. And then, l I met you.

“It’s different though, how I feel about you. It’s not the same as what I felt for Seg. That was more...pining, like a longing that became a dull ache, and I didn’t think I’d ever stop feeling it, but then along you came, and it was like someone had turned on a light and suddenly everything I thought I knew about my life, about my world, was all shiny and brand new and full of possibilities again; for the first time in a long time, I didn’t hurt inside any more.”

“That kind of makes me sound like a rebound guy,” Adam says, then explains further when you look at him strangely. “Like the guy you get with to get over the guy you were with before?”

“I don’t think I can rebound off of a guy that I’ve never been with, but I know what you mean, and it’s not like that. You’re not some replacement for Seg, or some balm I can put on my heart to make me feel better – you’re more than that. You’re...special. When you said you’d want to go on a date with me, you made me feel special too, and I want to feel like that all the time. I want to be with you, as much as I can, for as long as I can.

“You’re right though; I don’t know a lot about you. You’re a mystery from space, a riddle I don’t know if I’ll ever find the answer to; we’re literally from two different worlds. But what I do know is that, despite all of that, what I feel for you is real.

“I feel like I want to get to know you. I feel like I want to spend time with you, and learn everything there is to know about Adam Strange, about Earth, about the future. And so what if you have to go back? I don’t care. I can’t just sit here and watch the one person in my entire life who’s made me feel something real just slip away without me.”

Adam has been sitting quietly through this, and now he wipes the back of his hand across his eyes and sniffs.

“Okay. Let’s do this then.”

“What’d you mean?”

“This. Us. You and me. All in. Whole hog. Full throttle. Whatever you wanna call it.”

“I...don’t understand.”

“Maybe this’ll clarify the situation.” And then he gets up from his chair and catches your face in both hands, pulling you into him and kissing you harder and faster than you’ve kissed before. You reach one hand up and grip Adam’s jacket, just over his heart, pulling him down to your level and returning the kiss with equal ferocity.

“Okay, I think I get it now,” you say with a smile once you eventually break apart. 

Just then, a flashing light on the skimmer’s dashboard indicates that you’re coming up on the Fortress. You point at it sheepishly, and look visibly disappointed.

“To be continued?” you ask, pushing him gently back off of you and into his chair.

Adam looks as determined as he does when you’re discussing Brainiac and the fate of the world. “You’re damn right it will be.”

*****

“So she’s gone.”

Three words, filled with finality and a growing sense of dread, echo around the Fortress as you stand with one hand covering your mouth and the other bracing you against a tabletop, the dead body of Rhom lying with wide eyes in front of you.

“Adam...what do we do now?” you ask, looking from Val-El to Adam to the body and back, searching each of them for an answer.

“Okay. We gotta tell Seg, if we can find him.”

That seems like a good plan. It seems like the only plan that makes any sense right now. You had arrived at the Fortress in search of Seg, but he was nowhere to be found, and then everything had been sidetracked by the re-emergence of Rhom’s normal personality, trying to warn you about Ona before...before…

You’ve never seen a dead body before. The glassy eyes, the way she’s lying in such an unnatural, uncomfortable position...it’s so unnerving, and yet you can’t bring yourself to look away.

“I am sorry, Adam. I did everything I could,” Val is saying, but it’s far away, like you’re at the bottom of a pond and he’s speaking from the surface. You stumble backwards and land on a step, scrabbling away from Rhom’s body as quickly as you can.

Two strong arms encircle you then, and you’re dimly aware of Adam drawing you into his chest, holding you tightly like a cocoon against the outside world. A dampness on your cheeks tells you that you’re crying, and you’re not even sure why.

You hadn’t even liked Rhom, with her piety and her cheerfulness and her constant affirmations that Rao would save you all, no matter what happened. She’d been naive, and idealistic, and she’d driven you mad.

But seeing her there, lifeless and unmoving, has finally hammered home what’s at stake here. 

Before, the concept of Brainiac had been obscure and distant, something you could think about in the abstract and not have to actually deal with. Now, that’s all changed. This is what could happen to you. What could happen to the people you care about. You could all end up dead and gone.

The ground feels as though it’s fallen out from under you, and everything is spinning. Your world has gone from the day to day drudgery of not paying attention to anything to this world-ending insanity. It’s too much. Too much change, too much at once, and you can’t take it.

“Hey, hey hey hey, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s not your fault,” Adam is whispering. He’s stroking your hair like he would a child, murmuring a steady stream of reassurances to keep you calm and stop you from spiralling out of control. Later, you’ll appreciate this. Right now, all you want to do is scream.

You turn into Adam’s chest and yell as hard as you can. He doesn’t say anything further, just holds you tightly against him. 

The warmth of his body and the smell of his jacket help bring you back to yourself sometime later. Your chest aches from crying, and your throat is hoarse from screaming as you tap lightly on Adam’s chest so that he can release you. You push yourself away from him as gently as you can, and he slides his hands from your back to your arms, keeping you steady as you regain your composure.

“Feel better?” he asks tentatively, and you nod, wiping your eyes with the heel of one hand.

“I guess I wasn’t ready for that,” you reply croakily. “It just...made it all so real, seeing Rhom like that. I’m sorry, we’re wasting time sitting here, we should go find Seg.”

“We can take a little more time, if you need it.”

“I can administer a mild relaxant if you wish?” Val offers. “It should reduce some of your more heightened emotions.”

“No, thank you. This is…I should feel this. It’s important that I feel this, and remember what this feels like, so I don’t forget what’s at stake again.”

You get to your feet, hugging yourself and walking back towards the skimmer. Adam trots after you and puts an arm around your shoulders.

“I’ll be okay in a little while, I swear. I just need to focus on something else for a bit. Let’s go find Seg, okay? He needs to know about all this.”

“You got it. Let’s get going. See ya, Val.”

The hologram waves as you depart, and you climb into the skimmer, thankful that you programmed the auto-pilot; you don’t feel up for driving right this minute.

Instead you curl up into the pilot’s seat and close your eyes, trying to reconcile everything that had happened today in your mind. Rhom was dead. You’d kissed Adam. Brainiac was on his way. You and Adam were going to get together. Seg was missing. So much, on so many different levels, and all vying for equal importance in your mind.

You manage to fall into a fitful sleep, somehow wrestling your over-taxed brain into submission as the skimmer soars across the Outlands back towards Kandor, dreams of Brainiac-infested friends and kisses with robots all mixed up into one horrible nightmare in your mind.

You wake with a start, back at the skimmer port and still in the pilot’s chair. You can’t have been here very long since the engine is still powering down and no Sagitari have come to throw you out thinking that you’re homeless and squatting in the skimmer.

Once again, Adam is nowhere to be seen. 

As you sit up, something falls away from you onto the floor. Collecting it from where it falls, you can see that it’s Adam’s jacket. He must have taken it off and laid it across you while you slept. You smile faintly and clutch it to your chest; it’s still warm.

You clamber out of the skimmer and sneak away. Walking through the halls of Kandor back towards the tavern, you resolve to never show that kind of weakness again.

Everyone is working so hard to stop Brainiac; Seg and Adam are risking their lives, and Kem is trying to re-home a little girl and run a business. You’d helped spur them into action, and now it was your turn to start pulling your weight. 

The only way you can stop Brainiac is by working with your friends, and that means on equal footing. No more tears. No more worrying. Whatever happens next, you are going to be ready for it.


	4. Strange Expedition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x05 - The House Of Zod

Morning comes, bringing with it no reprieve from the problems of the previous day. Rhom is still dead. Ona is still alone. And Brainiac is still on his way.

You troop towards the tavern, head down as if your dark mood is sitting on the back of your neck; you’re not working today, but you don’t really have anywhere else you can think to be right now. Besides, you still haven’t heard from Seg, so you’re hoping Kem will have; and you’re not actually sure where Adam stays, so it’s the best way to ensure you run into him again, too.

Walking along deep in thought, operating on auto-pilot as you trace the well-worn route from your home to the tavern, you don’t notice that Adam has sidled up beside you for at least thirty seconds until he coughs dramatically.

“Rao, are you trying to kill me?” you gasp, slapping him hard on the shoulder as he creases over double with laughter.

“Good morning to you, too,” he manages to reply between laughs. “Feeling better?”

“I was until you did that!”

Adam’s laughter fades to a dopey grin instead, and you roll your eyes at him. Just being in his presence makes you feel remarkedly better. 

“Honestly though, I am. I’m sorry for last night; it was just...seeing Rhom like that...it affected me more than I expected it to, took me off-guard. Oh, this is yours, you should have it back.”

You hand him his jacket, which you’d taken home with you the night before and had been carrying under your arm in hopes of returning it. He takes it gingerly, his fingertips brushing your hand as he does so. You’re definitely feeling better now.

“Thanks. And it’s okay, y’know? This stuff’s hard for everyone. The main thing is that you picked yourself back up again. Back in the fight.” He’s dismissive of it, but in the ‘it’s no big deal’ kind of way, rather than not caring.

“Thank you, you know? For being there. For...what you did.” It’s embarrassing enough just thinking about it, but having to actually say the words ‘thank you for holding me’ would just be mortifying. 

“No prob. Any time.”

“Never again, I swear. I’m done being the one holding you back. Seg’s doing everything he can to help, and you’re a bloody superhero from another planet, and all I’ve done so far is sit and cry. That stops today.”

Adam gives you a sceptical glance, mouth quirked, eyebrows together, then shakes his head. “You’ve done a lot more than that. You stole a skimmer, for a start.”

“...Twice,” you say with a burgeoning smile. 

“Exactly. And without you, I’d still be on Kem’s floor with a busted lip.”

Your smile blossoms into a small laugh then at the thought of Adam just laying on the floor for a whole day, and his words have definitely had the desired impact as you realise that he’s right. You’d already sworn that you weren’t going to sit on the sidelines any more feeling sorry for yourself and yet here you are, doing just that.

You don’t thank Rao for much, considering you dpn’t really believe in him, but right now, you thank Rao for Adam Strange.

“Your face is looking better, actually. The bruising’s almost gone, and your lip doesn’t look like it was split at all.” You reach over tentatively and run your hand along his cheek. He doesn’t wince in pain, or discomfort – nor does he pull away from your touch.

“Yeah, someone took good care of me,” he teases. “Healing hands.” He takes your hand from his face and kisses the base of each of your fingers. Electricity shoots up and down your arm at his touch, from your hand right into your brain.

Then you’re in the tavern, and you both drop your hands back to your sides. This relationship is still new and, considering how much Kem likes teasing, you don’t want to give him any more fuel for the fire – at least, not yet.

You both sidle up to the bar; Kem is behind it, counting bottles of Kandorian Ale and humming to himself.

“Kem? Where’s Ona?” you ask, looking around for the little girl. 

“Funny story actually,” Kem says, in a tone of voice that suggests it most definitely isn’t. “I took her to see Mama Zed yesterday, and then she ended up as an initiate in the Voice Of Rao’s congregation. She’s in training to become one of the Words.”

You’re not quite sure how to take that. For a moment you think Kem is joking, but the seriousness on his face soon disproves that theory. 

“Just like that? They just took her?”

“Yep.”

“And you didn’t think to go with her, or stop them?”

“Why would I do that? She’ll be fed, kept safe. Honestly, it’s the closest she can get to being Ranked without actually, you know, being Ranked. And she loves all that Rao stuff, she’ll be in her element. It’s a much better life that she could have gotten around here.” Kem indicates his own tavern, and shrugs in a ‘you know what I mean’ kind of way.

“That’s good, right?” Adam asks, looking from you to Kem and back again, but you’re not really able to reply.

You’re speechless, processing this new information. In some respects, Kem is right; Ona is better off where she is now. Kem had a hard enough time providing for himself and keeping the bar open; trying to support a child would have been difficult, and she would definitely have a much better life than the rest of you now.

But on the other hand, it just doesn’t sit right with you. Maybe it’s just a holdover from your feelings towards her mother, and Raoism in general. Despite all of her piety and devotion, Rhom had died. How can Ona still put her faith in Rao, knowing what had happened to her mother?

She’s a child, is how. She still sees the world in black and white, and has the optimism to go along with that. Maybe you’re just jaded and cynical. 

Or it’s that you’ve seen Brainiac’s power first hand, and you’re just being realistic.

Either way, she’s safer with the other Words for now, at least. If things take a turn for the worse, then at least you’ll know where she is if you have to get her out of harm’s way.

At least it’s one less thing for you to worry about for now; instead, you should probably turn your attention to the more pressing matter at hand.

While you were silent, Kem has begun explaining how the Words of Rao work to Adam, and you cut across them quickly.

“Hey, Kem, have you seen Seg?” you ask, propping yourself onto a stool next to Adam.

“And welcome back to the conversation,” Kem replies. His eyes linger on the small gap between yours and Adam’s elbows on the bar top; you subtly try to scooch over slightly to make it wider, but Kem just shakes his head.

“You two need to just get it on already and put the rest of us out of our misery. I want to see if I win the poll.”

“Poll?” Adam asks. “Are you betting on us?”

“The whole bar is, I think. I’ve got a week and two days, so if you could hold off for a little longer I’ll be a rich man.”

Instantly you’re blushing as if Krypton’s red sun itself is burning beneath your skin. You avert your eyes from Adam, unsure of the reaction that he’ll be having, scared to find out. Instead, you focus on Kem and try to tamp down the blush in your cheeks through sheer willpower alone.

“My love life is none of your business, Kem. Have you seen Seg?”

“Oh, so this is a love life thing! I wasn’t sure, so at least my suspicions have been confirmed. That secures the bets I’ve already taken, at least.” You’ve never wanted to punch Kem in his stupid smug face as much as you do right now.

“Kem! Seg! Where!” Adam interjects, saving you both from further embarrassment.

“I haven’t seen him; I was going to ask you two the same thing, actually. He stormed out of here last night after smacking you, and that’s the last I heard.”

This isn’t good – maybe Adam was right before, maybe they had thrown him in prison, right next door to Lyta.

Wait. That gives you an idea.

“Kem, you’re a genius. Stay here, in case Seg comes back. Adam, you go back down to the Labor Index, see if Seg’s been there. If his Council plan failed, he might do something drastic and try some kind of rescue attempt, so he’ll need supplies. Anyone hears anything, you call.” You slide off your stool and turn to leave, but Adam catches your shoulder.

“Not that I don’t enjoy being told what to do, but I’m assuming you’ve got a plan? Where’re you going? If you wander off half-cocked like Seg, we might lose both of you.”

His concern is touching; and he’s right, you probably should have explained a bit better; you’re acting like Seg, which is how Seg got into this mess in the first place, so it’s probably not the best plan. 

“I know what I’m doing. I’m going to go see Lyta, see if she’s seen Seg. And if that doesn’t work, I’m going to find Nyssa-Vex and see what she knows. One of them’s bound to have seen him.”

“Is that wise, wandering around the Guilds? Are you even allowed up there?”

“Not...technically. But I’m good at not being seen.” It’s true; spending most of your life blending into the background has given you the uncanny ability to go completely unnoticed if you want to. You’re hoping you can use that to your advantage.

“Just...be careful, okay? I’d say I’m coming with you, but there’s more chance of both of us being found out than just you.”

“I will, don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it. Do me a favour and go talk to Kem again, before you go? He doesn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as he probably should be.”

“And I’ll put a stop to his little betting pool while I’m at it.”

“Good luck with that.”

You’re about to leave when Adam grasps your hand and pulls you towards him; your redirected momentum sends you spinning into him like you’re in the middle of a dance, and his lips find yours as you come to a stop. A low whistling from behind Adam tells you that Kem’s still playing voyeur, but when Adam is kissing you, nothing else really seems to matter.

“For luck,” Adam explains as you part. And then you’re gone, before you lose your nerve and spend the rest of the day kissing him instead of looking for your missing friend.

*****

“What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Lyta.”

Lyta-Zod is, understandably, not one of your favourite people. But even you can feel sorry for her, seeing her imprisoned by her own mother for crimes she certainly didn’t commit. The unshakeable honour of the Zods, even with regard to their children, is something to be marvelled at – and not always for a good reason.

You can see why Seg likes her, if you’re honest; she’s pretty, with a hard edge. Even now, she has a fierce battle-beauty about her, like she’d kick your arse and then fly off and have sex as a victory party. 

Unfortunately, just because Seg likes her doesn’t mean that you do. She’s always felt...other, and not just because she’s Ranked and you’re not. Maybe, subconsciously, your mind still thinks of her as competition for Seg, even though that’s not, nor has it ever been, the case. There was no competition – Seg had never been yours to win.

She’s stuck behind a force shield in a drab prison cell, dressed in a red and black undershirt instead of her usual Sagitari outfit. She looks out of place and awkward, but not, surprisingly, sad or disheartened. In fact, she looks furious, but that’s probably more at you than at her current predicament.

“I’m serious, you shouldn’t be here. If my mother catches you, you’ll be in here with me.”

“Trust me, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here, but this is important – Seg’s missing, and I need to know if you’ve seen him.”

Lyta is clearly taken aback by this from the brief look of shock on her face, but she recovers swiftly and regains her composure.

“Missing? What happened?”

“We’re not sure yet. We just haven’t seen him, and thought he might have come up here to see you. He said he had a plan to get you out.”

Suddenly she’s on the defensive. “And why would he do that?”

You huff impatiently. “I don’t have time for this Lyta; we all know you and Seg are togeth-”

“Shut up! Don’t say that, you don’t know who’s listening.” She punches the side of the cell in frustration, and you turn to go. This was clearly a waste of time.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“To see Nyssa; maybe she’ll be more useful than you are.” You think your conversation is over, but one further sentence is enough to stop you dead in your tracks.

“I know why you hate me, you know.” 

You refuse to turn around and face her again; you’re not sure what you’ll look like if you do. 

“I don’t hate you.” 

“You think I’m blind? I know how you look at Seg. I think he’s the only one on Krypton who doesn’t know how much you care about him. But it’s not my fault that you never told him. It’s not my fault that he chose...someone else. So maybe try taking that out on yourself instead of me.”

You grit your teeth so hard that your jaw aches, and your fingernails bite into your palms as you clench your fists. You’re not sure if it’s anger at her words, or at the fact that she’s right. You force out a reply through an uncooperative mouth.

“Have you seen Seg, or not?” 

“Not since yesterday. Please, if you find him, let him know that...that I’m worried,” Lyta finishes lamely, her true meaning left hanging in the gulf between you both. Tell him that she loves him.

You nod, still refusing to turn around, and march back to the cell door without another word.

As you reach it however, you stop with one hand on the frame. You look back at Lyta just slightly, out of the corner of your eye. If this is the last conversation you have, if you can’t find Seg and he hasn’t figured out a way to save her from her fate, you don’t want this to be it.

“I really don’t hate you, Lyta. I’m sorry this is happening to you. And you don’t have to worry. About me and Seg, I mean. I know what he and...his special someone have. I wouldn’t ever interfere with that. Never.”

You slip out of the room without waiting for her reply.

Rao, she was insufferable. Who was she to tell you how you feel? Who gave her the right to say those things, or to make you say what you had said in return?

You had thought that your feelings for Seg weren’t going to affect you any more, especially now that Adam was on the scene. And yet, it seemed that you couldn’t quite escape your past after all.

But you can’t let that get in the way. You have to find Seg and hope that he has a way to get Lyta out of the mess she’s in that doesn’t involve Rhom. One problem at a time though – find Seg, then deal with Lyta.

You know that your options are running out fast. You storm away from the prison cell towards the Science Guild, hoping that your next visit is more fruitful than this one.

*****

The door to Nyssa-Vex’s meeting room slides shut with a hiss as she walks in tapping a Science Guild tablet and not paying attention to her surroundings. As she reaches the table and deposits the tablet, she turns and narrows her eyes as she sees you leaning up against the wall.

“What do you think you’re doing here?”

That sounds strangely familiar, you think as she grabs her tablet again and begins to call security.

“Before you do that, you should really hear me out. This is about Seg; he’s missing, and I need your help to find him.”

Nyssa pauses, one finger over a big red alert button on her screen. You’ve piqued her interest, and she slowly lowers her finger and slides the tablet back onto the table.

Seg seems intent on surrounding himself with beautiful women, it seems. Nyssa reminds you of Cythonna; she’s an ice goddess in high heels, her platinum blonde hair cropped close to accentuate the permanent sneer that her face seems to have. Or maybe that’s just the expression that you produce in her.

“Normally, I wouldn’t even entertain you. But it’s been a while since someone has spoken to me like that. It’s almost refreshing. Talk fast. If my father finds you here, you’ll be executed on the spot.”

“Seg was on his way up here last night to speak to the Council, and he hasn’t come back. Have you seen him at all?”

Nyssa thinks for a moment, her long fingers now wrapped around the edge of the table, whether to steady herself or to stop her from striking you, you’re not sure. She controls herself long enough to answer, at least.

“Not since last night. And there have been no Council meetings since then either. Whatever Seg was doing, he didn’t make it up here.”

“Damn it, that’s two dead ends. Alright, thank you.” 

Nyssa arches one of her flawless eyebrows. “Two? Who else have you spoken to?”

“I...don’t know if I should say. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.” It’s true – Lyta and Seg’s relationship is a secret (even if basically everyone knows) and telling Nyssa, who’s meant to be Seg’s betrothed, is probably the most damaging thing you could do.

“You’ve been to see Lyta, I suppose? Don’t worry, I’m well aware of their little fling. I’m not judging, and their secret’s safe with me.”

You doubt that; she’s a politician, first and foremost, so any secret is really a time bomb just waiting to be set off. But you’re backed into a corner now; there’s no point denying it.

“Yes. I saw Lyta in her cell, but she hadn’t seen Seg either.”

“You’ve been busy, haven’t you?” It’s not an accusation, not exactly, but it’s not a straightforward question either.

“I’m trying to find my friend.”

“I understand. Thank you for your honesty; something else that’s refreshing. And don’t worry about Lyta-Zod. Something tells me that her predicament is going to sort itself out, even without Seg’s help.”

You’re not sure what that means exactly, but she smiles a tiny smile as she says it, like she knows another secret that you’re not privy to.

“It’s a lot to ask, I know, but if you hear anything about Seg, please get me a message?”

Nyssa considers you for a moment, raking her eyes across you from head to toe before deciding. You feel as if you’re in a full body scan in the medical bay, as if she can see right down to your soul. “You’ve got some nerve, you know? But alright. Likewise.”

“Thank you,” you say again, before sliding the door back open with a touch of the door panel.

“Wait.”

You freeze – has Nyssa changed her mind? Is she going to have you arrested, and go after Seg herself?

“What’s your name?”

You breath a sigh of relief, hopefully not visibly enough that Nyssa can detect it, and tell her.

“I see. I’ll be keeping an eye on you. Breaking into the Guilds, not to mention the holding cells? You’re more resourceful than I’d have thought. I don’t think you’re one to be underestimated.”

“When it comes to the people I care about? Definitely not.”

You flee the room before she can realise that you’re nowhere near as confident as those last few sentences made you sound.

Nyssa-Vex is nothing like you thought she was going to be. Granted, you probably couldn’t trust her as far as you could throw her, but she had heard you out, and she had given you the information you needed. 

She was likely as conniving and manipulative as her father, Daron, but...there was something about her that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. She may have been another ruthless Guild politician, but maybe she was more than that. Seg seemed to trust her, too. 

More things to ruminate on, you think as you slip through the halls of the Science Guild back towards the Rankless sectors and Kem’s tavern. 

So Seg hadn’t made it to the Guilds; that meant that Rhom and Brainiac were still a secret, at least for now. It also meant that, if he hadn’t come here, and he hadn’t gone to see Lyta, then the chances of something bad having happened to him on the way were getting higher by the second.

Your heart freezes in your chest however when Adam’s voice fills your communicator, saying your name quickly through the static. Will this be good news, or bad?

“Hey, come in? You hear me?”

“Adam! I’m here, what is it?”

“God, am I glad to hear your voice. I thought you’d gotten captured, you’ve been gone for hours!” The relief is evident in his voice – you must have lost track of time while on your little reconnaissance mission.

“I’m fine Adam, I’ll catch you up later. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Seg! He got a message out, but he’s in trouble. We gotta move quick, or he might not make it.”

Your heart soars at the news; he may be in trouble, but at least that means he’s still alive. “Okay, where do you want me to meet you?”

“Seg gave me a message for Lyta – if we can get to her, maybe she can rally her troops and we can go find him.”

“She’s not going to be able to do that from prison, Adam.”

Then Adam hits you with your second bombshell in as many minutes. “She’s not in prison any more, she’s free. I’ll meet you at the guard’s quarters, okay?”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, cutting off the line as soon as his sentence is over. Lyta-Zod. Rao damn her. The last person you wanted to see, especially given how you’d left things earlier, and yet right now she’s your only hope to save your best friend.

If you believed in the gods, you’d think that they have a pretty twisted sense of humour.

*****

It’s bad enough being in a skimmer during an ice storm, but having to walk through one on foot, with the life of one of your best friends in the balance, is absolute torture.

You’re bundled up in Sagitari issue snow gear, and you feel like you weigh four times as much as usual. Your hands and feet feel sluggish and ungainly, and breathing is getting harder by the second. 

But Seg is out here somewhere; Adam’s message and Lyta’s scans have confirmed it, and you’re not going home until you find him.

You and Adam had met Lyta in the Sagitari quarters as planned, and Adam had played her Seg’s final message. You hadn’t caught much of it, but the meaning was clear – he loved her, and he thought he was going to die.

Her determination to find him had been even fiercer than yours, and she had soon conscripted both you and Adam, and another Sagitari, Lieutenant Tai, into a make-shift search party.

Lyta is astounding, really. Mere hours before she had been in prison and facing execution, and now here she was back on duty and trying to save Seg. 

She really does love him.

How she had gotten out of prison is a question for another time, but something about the way Nyssa had smiled gave you a pretty good idea who was behind it. There are far more pressing issues right now though.

As you scan left and right for any sign of Seg, your foot catches on a hidden outcropping of rock and you hit the ground, hard. 

“Shit!” You struggle to your feet, dusting yourself off as best you can, and then Adam appears out of the snowstorm, absent one second and then there the next. He throws one of your arms over his shoulder and hoists you back upright.

“You okay? It’s crazy out here!” he bellows over the sound of the storm. He’s right up in your face, but even then you can barely hear him.

“I’m fine! We have to keep going!”

“If you’re hurt, we can turn back! We’re not losing anyone else out here!”

“No! I told you, I’m not holding us back any more! We have to find Seg, he’s too important! If we turn back and he dies, I’ll never forgive myself!”

You can’t see much of Adam’s face, since it’s most of it is covered by a thick black oxygen mask, but his eyes look at you with a newfound admiration.

“You know, you’ve never looked as hot to me as you do right this second!”

“Funny, because I’m bloody freezing!”

“I’d kiss you, but I don’t think frostbite is very romantic!”

“Definitely not!”

You both trudge onwards, trying to keep up with Lyta and her Sagitari companion. They’re trained for situations like this; Adam may be a hero back home, but you and he are civilians in comparison to them.

Suddenly Lyta drops to her knees, with a call of “We’re close!” as she begins to dig through the snow. Surely Seg hasn’t been buried already? If he has, then the chances of him still being alive are...no. You refuse to think like that. You won’t.

But it’s only the communicator that Seg must have been using to send messages to Adam. Seg himself is nowhere to be found. Adam claps Lyta on the shoulder when he sees the disappointment on her face.

“Don’t worry! We’re not going to stop looking!” he shouts, and you step in front of her, nodding along with him.

“He’s gotta be around here somewhere, Lyta. We’ll find him, I promise. You’re not going to lose him; he loves you too much to die like this.”

She narrows her eyes at you, trying to work out if you’re being sincere or not. Something in your own eyes must communicate your intentions to her better than your words can, and she nods sharply.

“There’s skimmer dust-off markings back there, they look fresh!” says Lieutenant Tai from behind you all, her head sticking out from behind one of the nearby rock formations. Lyta is instantly focused again.

“Scan for a heat signature!” she shouts, and then you’re all moving again, trudging back through the snowstorm.

Time and distance are an illusion when everything looks exactly the same – all is white, and all is pain. But you’re not giving up. You refuse. However long this takes, you’ll last. Seg’s counting on you.

“There!” shouts Lyta, pointing at a rather innocuous looking rock face spattered with snow. You think she’s seeing things initially, but as you get closer, you can see an outline etched into the stone; it’s a door. 

The four of you join together, shoving as hard as you can. The door is enormous, meant to be operated by electronic means no doubt, but it budges just enough under your combined might to admit you all, one by one, into a cave.

It’s still frosty, but far more comfortable out of the snow. You begin to remove your frozen outer clothing, dropping it into a heap by the doors. You gauge your surroundings; this larger cave has a few corridors moulded out of the rock leading away from it, and there are artificial lights hanging from the ceiling.

You rub your hands together so that the blood begins to circulate again. Lyta grabs her weapon and nods to Tai, who is already raring to go, before she points at you and Adam.

“We’ll go on ahead, scope the place out. You and him follow behind us, at a safe distance. If you see anything, shout.”

As much as you’d like to just go running off in search of Seg, Lyta and her guard are the only ones with weapons, so you just agree and hug yourself tightly as they disappear around a corner.

“If we get out of this, I know a few ways we can warm up afterwards,” Adam says, appearing beside you once again. Maybe he’s using his Zeta-Beam device, you think absently, because he can sneak up on you so quietly when he wants to.

Then his words register, and you’re looking at him with wild eyes.

“Hey, I was kidding!”

“Really? You seemed eager enough when we were in that Sagitari changing room. You couldn’t seem to keep your eyes in your head.” You’re not sure where those words came from – you don’t even remember thinking that at the time, but your mind is playing defensive in the wake of his suggestion.

Adam looks guilty then, biting his lip. “Alright, I’ll admit, I was curious. But when you’re surrounded by naked people, it’s hard not to look.”

“You didn’t seem particularly picky, either.”

“You mean like, guys or girls? Is that a thing here too? Let me guess, you don’t have hats, or baseball, but you’re still hung up on labels? That’s perfect.” He throws his hands up in dismay. 

“No, that’s not-that’s not what I meant! This is coming out all wrong, I don’t even know why I said that.” It’s true, you’re not. Your brain must still be frozen, or something. You back-pedal, trying to explain.

“With the Genesis Chamber dictating who gets to have children, and the Guilds dictating who gets to get married, gender and sexuality aren’t really an issue on Krypton. At least, not like they used to be.”

“So what’s the big deal?” Adam asks with a shrug.

“I was just...surprised to see it in a human. I thought you might be...different. More...reserved.”

“Oh, I’m different alright. Back home, who you sleep with seems to be everybody’s business, despite the fact that you’re the only ones doing the sleeping. I try not to let it bother me; I just like who I like. Not so big on putting a name on it, y’know? And, I like you. So that’s that.”

“I was just surprised, that’s all.” Your voice is weak, even to your own ears.

Adam looks at you slyly then, and nudges you with an elbow. “Waitaminute. Were you jealous?”

“What? No!” Your voice cracks, betraying you, and Adam laughs with his entire body.

“You were! You saw me checking out that guy’s ass and thought I’d rather be with him than you! D’you really think I’m that shallow?”

“No, I just...how did you put it before? It’s more of a ‘me’ thing than a ‘you’ thing. I guess I was just worried that, since I’m so new to all this, I’d done something wrong and you were looking to...move on.” 

You’re still hugging yourself, but it’s not about keeping warm any more; you’re holding yourself tight to stop yourself flying off in a million different directions.

Adam steps in front of you and places both his hands on your upper arms, rubbing them gently. He must think you’re still cold.

“I promise you, I am not. I said I was into this, all the way, and I meant it. I just saw some dude’s ass, that’s all. It didn’t mean anything, I swear. And for the record, yours is better.”

His words are so genuine, so earnest, that you can’t help but believe him. You push aside the past few minutes, putting them from your mind; temporary insanity caused by icicles in the brain. 

“I don’t think so; I saw his arse too, he definitely squats. Like a lot,” you say, completely deadpan.

“Hey, if you saw it too, then why’re you ragging on me?” Adam asks incredulously, before your face joins your voice on the betrayal train and you crack a smile. “Oh. Oh I see how it is!”

He grabs you then, playfully pulling you towards him for a kiss now that you’re not in danger of being frozen together forever, when the sound of blaster fire reaches your ears.

“Shit!”

You both take off running in the direction of the sounds, skidding through the water-slick corridors that twist and turn like the hallways of Kandor. It doesn’t take long before you come across Seg, tied to a chair with a dead Black Zero operative of all things behind him.

“Seg, you’re safe!” you say, stating the obvious but not really sure what else you were meant to say. 

“Yeah. Hi. Fancy untying me? My arms are going numb.”

Adam darts forward to aid him and you smile at the ceiling as a wave of relief rushes over you, warming you more than any heater or hug from Adam could; finally things are starting to look up. 

Seg is alive. Lyta is safe, and possibly warming up to you. You may have found an ally in Nyssa. Ona is somewhere safe, even if it’s not the first place you’d have wanted her to go. 

And Adam, sweet Adam, manages to make you feel better at every turn even when everything, including your own mind, is working against you; be it a disappearing friend or your own false assumptions, he’s there to keep you on course. You’re not sure quite where you’d be without him right now – probably back at the tavern with Kem, keeping your feet on solid ground and trying not to get involved in all of this.

But you don’t want that, not any more, you realise. Your life may be more dangerous and filled with confusion now, but it’s also exciting, and filled with potential – for laughter, for friendship, and for love. You don’t want it to go back to the way it was, never again.

Granted, you could do without the sociopathic alien robot on its way to kill you, but you had to take the bad with the good.

Life is certainly more complicated now though; with Adam, Seg, Kem, and now Lyta involved in the fight against Brainiac, plus the added complication of Black Zero, things are beginning to spiral. How long will you be able to keep up with them, before you lose control?


	5. Strange Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x06 – Civil Wars

And just like that, nothing makes sense any more. It’s like someone has pulled the world out from under you, so that you’re spinning on the spot, round and around, and wherever you land you know you’re not going to have any chance of understanding where you are.

In two hundred years, Krypton is supposed to explode. Everything that you’ve been fighting for, all of the hardship you’ve endured already, is all ultimately going to be for nothing. 

And Adam knew. 

He knew that he was coming back to a doomed planet, and everything he had done was to try and ensure that that doomed planet remained doomed so that his future would stay the same.

Betrayal is your first feeling. You thought he was here to help, to stop Brainiac and save your planet. And now he’s suggesting that you should actually just let Brainiac rip your city from the ground, because that’s how time is meant to unfold.

How can he expect you to just sit back and do nothing while thousands of Kandorians die, only for the rest of Krypton to follow? 

You can’t even bear to look at him right now. He and his fellow time traveller, Lyta’s son, Dru-Zod, or General Zod as Adam calls him, are trussed up in Sagitari shackles at your feet while Seg and Lyta try to decide what to do next. You’ve excused yourself from this discussion; you can’t even think straight, let alone decide something so monumental.

Adam calls your name, but you wave him away, running through one of the nearby tunnels until you can’t hear his voice any more. Only then do you sink to the ground and hold your head in your hands; maybe if you can keep yourself steady, the world will stop spinning quite so much.

He hid this from you, from Seg, from everyone. With his deceit revealed, how can you possibly trust anything he has ever said, anything that he says from now on?

Was everything he said he felt for you a lie as well? Had he he taken advantage of you in order to get closer to Seg, and to further his own goals?

You feel dirty. You feel used. You feel like you want to curl up into a ball and just wait the two hundred years it will take for Krypton to explode and let the fire and death consume you.

You replay all of the conversations you’ve had with Adam in your mind, trying to see if there was ever a glimpse of the facade, any hint that he was deceiving you, but you can’t find any. Every interaction you’ve ever had with him has felt so genuine, so real...even if he has kept secrets, they haven’t been about who he is. The man you know as Adam Strange, is who Adam is. Cocky, persistent, and more than a little insecure under the surface; all of that was true.

You aren’t sure where you stand with him any more, but the one thing you can tell with absolutely certainty is that he isn’t an inherently bad person.

But then you would never have thought he was capable of lying to you on this scale, so maybe it’s all just a very well constructed lie?

It’s difficult; Adam seemed genuinely shocked by the General’s assertions that Brainiac wasn’t the enemy that travelled through time to destroy Krypton, and the devastation in his eyes when he realised just how badly he had screwed up his mission couldn’t have been faked no matter how good an actor he is.

But did the fact that Adam had kept his secret mean that you should trust Zod instead? There’s something about him that doesn’t sit right; you may not be Lyta’s biggest fan, but you know she is one of the most honourable people you’ll ever meet. Her son on the other hand, igives you entirely different feelings.

He certainly believes that what he has been saying is the truth; but the truth can be presented in many different ways to serve different ends – he seems to know more about the future than Adam does, so it could be that he’s also withholding information from you all as Adam did.

Which of these time travellers are you meant to trust? Your heart says Adam, and your head is saying anyone but Zod – but is that enough to base your next actions on?

It makes your head hurt, just trying to sort it all out. It pounds between your hands, a rhythmic beat, louder and more insistent by the second until you realise that the sound is actually footsteps making their way towards you.

You look up just in time to see Seg, weapon at his side, turn the corner, smiling grimly. He’s a welcome sight, despite everything that’s going on right now. A friendly face amidst the turmoil.

“Hey. How’re you holding up?”

“I really don’t know, Seg,” you tell him truthfully. Unlike Adam, you’ve never been able to lie to Seg. Withhold the truth, yes. But lie? Definitely not.

“It’s all such a mess. What are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t really know who to believe right now, in all honesty. But Zod says that there’s something down here that can stop Brainiac, and I don’t know about you but I think it’s worth investigating. 

“The fact of the matter is that Brainiac’s a clear and present threat, while whatever Adam is worried about from the future, isn’t. So I say we deal with Brainiac, and go from there. Plus I’m not really inclined to listen to anything Adam has to say right now.”

It makes sense. It’s logical. But it still doesn’t seem right.

“Lyta and I are going to go with Zod, see what we can find out about this weapon. We’re gunna leave Lieutenant Tai here to keep an eye on Adam for now. Do you want to come with us, or stay with him?”

It’s an innocent question, but it feels like Seg is questioning your loyalty even if he doesn’t intend to. You need more information before you can decide what to do next, and for that, there’s only one clear course of action.

“I’ll stay here, for now. I need to talk to Adam, maybe I can get some more details out of him that we’ve missed.” And really, you just need to hear the truth from him, in his own words, from his own lips.

“And, for what it’s worth, Seg? Be careful – there’s something about General Zod that I don’t trust.”

Seg looks around conspiratorially, as if Zod might appear from nowhere and catch him in the act, before replying. 

“Between you and me, I’m not sure about him either. The guy shoved a space spider inside my body, which is possibly the least pleasant thing I have ever experienced, and now he wants to be my new best friend. But, unlike Adam, he hasn’t lied to me yet. So he’s winning so far.”

You pull yourself up from the floor and walk back to the central chamber with Seg. It’s probably the first time in a long time that you’ve spent alone together, just you and him. You lapse into companionable silence, both united in your confusion, even if you’re approaching it from different angles.

Seg joins Lyta and Zod, now free from his bonds, before the three of them head off down a different tunnel. Seg smiles as they depart, while Lyta and Zod just look grim. The family resemblance, at least in this, is uncanny.

Adam looks downcast, but your return brings some hope back to his eyes. You look away quickly, not sure what you’re feeling, what you’re supposed to be feeling. Tai keeps her gun pointed at him the entire time.

You wait for as long as you can before nudging Tai lightly. She looks at you, irritated at being disturbed.

“I know this goes against what Lyta and Seg probably asked you to do, but I need a moment alone with him. You don’t have to go far, but I think he’d be more comfortable talking to me if he didn’t have a gun pointed right at him.”

Tai looks at you as if you’re as stupid as you sound, and shakes her head. “The Commander told me to stay right here, and not listen to anything he has to say. I don’t disobey my orders.”

“Look, I promise, I won’t go near him. I’ll stay as far away as we are now, and all I’ll do is talk. Just go around the corner. If anything happens, you can be back here long before he has a chance to escape.”

“I’m not disobeying my orders,” Tai repeats, readjusting her weapon so that it doesn’t dig into her shoulder quite so much.

Adam remains silent, but his eyes are pleading, not with Tai, but with you. For forgiveness, maybe? If you don’t get to talk to him, you’ll never find out.

“Have you ever been in love, Lieutenant?” The question seems to catch her off-guard, and she gives you a side-eye so severe that you almost flinch.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“If the person you were in love with lied to you, or at least didn’t tell you the whole truth, wouldn’t you want to confront them about it? That’s all I want to do; I just need to talk to him. Please. I swear, nothing’s going to go wrong.”

Tai looks at you then, really looks at you as a person and not just an asset that needs to be escorted or a civilian interfering in a Sagitari mission. She screws her face up in indecision, before lowering her weapon and sighing.

“Alright. But I won’t be far. And not a word of this to Commander Zod.”

“My lips are sealed,” you reply gratefully. Tai retreats around a corner with a venomous look at Adam, daring him to try anything.

Finally, you’re alone. The two of you, and this massive pile of jumbled feelings between you, like a patch of spiny plants that needs to be navigated before you can get back to each other. 

You lean up against the wall, and prepare to take your first careful step towards the thorns, but Adam manages to get the first word.

“So, you love me, huh?” he asks from his perch on the floor, eyes upturned, full of longing.

“You don’t get to comment,” you tell him firmly. “You get to answer my questions, and then I’ll decide how I feel about you.”

Adam looks like he wants to retort, but restrains himself in time. He breathes out hard, and then looks at you with those pale eyes that you find so mysterious. Eyes apparently designed to keep secrets. “Ask away.”

Now that you’re here, you’re not sure where to start. You cast your mind around and latch onto the first thought you find.

“It’s true then? Krypton explodes in two hundred years?”

“It’s true. Or at least that’s how Superman always told the story. But I didn’t know about Brainiac or Kandor, I swear. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us about it?”

“I’ve been through all this with Seg. Why’re you making me say it all again?”

“Because I need to hear it from you. I need to hear you say the words to me.”

Adam’s cheekbones flare as he grits his teeth. It’d be hot, if the circumstances were anything but what they are. And even now, you find your gaze lingering despite yourself.

“Okay. Fine. I didn’t tell you because I’m a coward; I didn’t know how to bring it up, and I thought that if I told you all you’d try and stop it happening and my future would change.”

“Can you blame us? How can you expect us to sit by and let ourselves die, knowing what’s coming, just so a planet we’ve never heard of can have another superhero two centuries from now?” To your surprise, you manage to keep your voice steady, free of hurt or accusation.

Adam’s expression is pained, but you glare him down. You’re going to get the answers you want, whether he likes it or not.

“I’m selfish, alright? I was looking out for myself, and my planet. I thought I could just come back here and keep things on track, and then I’d leave and no one would be any the wiser. But the longer I spend here, the more I see that I never had any chance of doing that.”

“What’d you mean?”

“You remember when I told you that I didn’t want to make attachments, because I was going to go back to my time? Did you really think that was my only reason? I didn’t want to start caring about people, knowing what was going to happen to you all. But I guess I’m too soft, I guess I care too much, because even now, knowing what I know about Krypton’s future, I don’t want you all to die. 

“Seg, Kem, Ona, even Lyta – I don’t want to see them blown to bits. I don’t want them to have to die for nothing.”

“And...” you begin, feeling the edges of your eyes begin to burn with repressed tears, “what about me? You tried to push me away, but I pushed back, and now we’re...whatever we are now. Were you just going to let me die too?”

Adam yanks at his bonds, as if he wants to put his arms around you, but of course he can’t. Instead he looks up at you imploringly.

“Of course not. I would have done everything I could to get you away from here, somewhere off-planet, even if it meant you had to go without me. I’ve tried so hard not to, but I haven’t been able to stop myself – I care about you, more than I’ve ever cared about anyone before.

“Maybe that’s love, I don’t know. I think maybe it is. And I am so sorry that I kept this from you; but you have to believe me – no matter what I wanted to do, whatever Zod wants is going to be a hundred times worse.

“If you don’t believe anything else I’ve said, today or since you’ve met me, believe those two things – Zod’s trouble, and I think...I think I’m in love with you.”

He’s telling the truth. The whole truth, finally. He’s as transparent as a pane of glass; you can see his soul laid bare beneath his skin, and it’s as radiant as the sun. You lose a mental battle you weren’t even aware you were fighting, and feel tears slide down your cheeks that you hasten to wipe away.

“I care about you too, Adam. I...I think…no, I know I love you. But this…this is a lot to take in. You lied to us, to me. I’m not sure how I’m meant to trust you again now. I wish I could just forgive you and let it all slide, but this is too big, it’s too much. “

“I wish I hadn’t lied,” Adam whispers, so low you barely hear him. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but lying to you, lying to Seg, that’s gotta be the worst one.”

The sheer despair on his face breaks your heart all over again. He really does mean it, you can tell without a doubt. The anger you felt before is cooling in the face of his repentance, and, while it doesn’t quite dwindle to nothing, it gives way to regret.

“I wish…I wish we could go back and do this all over again. I wish you could have been honest with us from the start, rather than making me doubt everything. I wish I could forgive you right now. And I wish there was some way we could all win, so that Krypton gets to live and your world gets its Superman, but...”

That’s it. That’s what you have to do. The epiphany strikes you like a punch to the face, and your eyes open so wide that they threaten to fall out of your head.

“Wait a minute. Who’s to say that there’re only two options here? What if we can find another way?”

“What’re you talking about?”

Now its your turn to look hopeful, and it bleeds into your words as you explain, your voice rising higher and higher. “Listen, what if we could stop Brainiac, save Krypton, and still make sure your timeline works out the same?”

“How? If Krypton doesn’t explode, then Kal-El doesn’t get sent to Earth. If that doesn’t happen, no Superman.” He says it as if he’s saying ‘the end of the world’. To him, no Superman is the same as his Earth not even existing.

“There has to be another way; we’ve got two hundred years to work it out. Surely it’s worth trying, at least?

“Maybe you came back in time to stop Brainiac, or Zod, or whoever else is threatening Krypton – but maybe you don’t have to go back to the exact same timeline. Maybe you can make it better. Maybe we can save everyone.”

Adam’s eyes drop from yours as he considers it. It’s agonizing, waiting to see what he thinks. He’s a time traveller, but it’s clear that he isn’t a hundred percent sure how it all works. If the cape in the Fortress is any indication though, whatever you change in your present has a direct impact on Adam’s future – so maybe it’s not such a crazy idea after all.

“I never thought of it that way,” he says under his breath. “I never thought...why did I never think?”

“Alright,” he says finally, looking back up, hopeful once again. “I think it’s worth a try. First, we have to stop Zod, and then Brainiac, and then we’ll see what happens next.”

He turns sheepish then, like a schoolboy confessing a crush. “Does this mean..are we okay? Or, anywhere close to okay? I know what I did, what I should have done, and I am so god damn sorry, but-”

You want to say no, you want to scream and shout and hit him for what he did, for how he has made you feel. But at your core, you believe him. He made a mistake. You get the feeling that he does that a lot. It’s hard to hold it against him, knowing how sorry he feels, how genuine the emotions shining out of him are.

And, more importantly, he wants to fix what he’s broken. He knows what he’s done wrong, and now he wants to do what’s right. 

It turns out that all he needed was a little help from you to discover exactly what right entailed.

You walk towards him slowly, the bramble patch of problems disappearing like dust on the wind as you cross the space between you. He looks up at you, unsure as to what you’re about to do. If you’re perfectly honest, you’re not sure either. Your head has done its share, now it’s your heart’s turn to drive.

You kneel next to him and tilt his head towards yours, kissing him gently, one hand under his chin. It’s more of a promise than a true kiss – this is what we’re going to try and get back to, but we’ve got a way to go.

“I really do love you, you know,” you whisper to him. “I wasn’t just saying that to get Tai to leave, or to make you feel guilty.”

“I’m pretty sure you just made my head spin three sixty degrees, Exorcist style, with that kiss, so I’d hope you love me after that.” 

The old Adam is back, full of charm and quips, and that’s what cinches it for you; there’s no way, if he isn’t who you think he is, that he’d be able to go back to that so easily. He is many things, but he isn’t capable of that level of deception. This is the real him – you didn’t fall in love with a lie.

You pull away from him and place one hand on each of his cheeks, feeling the bristles beneath your palms. He can’t look anywhere but right at you, and that’s good, because he needs to understand.

“No more lies, Adam. The whole truth, no matter how painful, all the time. Or this is over, and you can go back to your time, your planet, no matter what’s happened to Krypton. I know we wanted to go full throttle, but I think, at least until I’ve sorted this all out in my head, that we need to slow it down just a bit.”

“Gotcha. Understood. Pump the brakes.”

You search his face, the set of his mouth, the earnestness of his eyes, and feel confident that, this time, he isn’t lying.

“Right now though,” Adam says, all business once again, “we need to stop Zod. Whatever it is that he’s going after, I get the feeling that it isn’t going to be good for anyone, whatever time period they’re from.”

“Agreed. So first thing’s first, we need to get you out of here.”

“Easier said than done, with Lieutenant Hard Ass on our case. But I have an idea. Just follow my lead, okay?”

You extricate yourself from Adam then, and walk back across the room. You whistle, and Tai returns in three seconds flat, weapon pointed once more at Adam.

“Did you get what you needed from the prisoner?” she asks, throwing Adam the filthiest look you’ve ever seen.

“I did.” The truth; the whole truth this time, and everything in between. You know where you stand now; with Adam, with Krypton – those sides aren’t as mutually exclusive as you’d first thought. The ground may be a bit shakier, but it’s going to be worth the effort.

All you need to do now is convince Seg of the same thing, before he makes a terrible mistake.

*****

“Oh, I hate to say this, but I gotta pee,” is not going to be the first line of a successful escape attempt, you think, but it’s what Adam comes up with.

You’re back up against the wall behind Lieutenant Tai, while she’s back in her weapon-drawn, kill you if you move pose. Adam is, of course, still on the floor, with a very pained look on his face.

“So unless you want to hold it for me, you're going to have to unlock me for a moment. Real soon.” The uncomfortable fidget Adam adds to his performance makes you crack a smile behind Tai’s back. You turn away so that Adam can’t see you, in case you distract him from his obviously flawless plan.

“I'll take the third option, which is ignoring you,” Tai retorts. So much for that. 

You’re just about to wonder if Adam has a Plan B or if you’ll have to try and knock her out yourself when an echo reverberates around the chamber. The three of you look around suspiciously, but you can’t seem to locate the origin of the noise. 

Tai moves towards a nearby door, and you instinctively step in front of Adam, ready to defend him if need be since he can’t defend himself.

Then suddenly everything is chaos as the doors open and Cythonnites pour out, one of them slicing Tai across the neck and another shoving you up against a wall with a knife at your throat. A quick glance sideways reveals the same fate for Adam, and you only have a second to contemplate that you’re about to die when he gabbles a sentence and somehow earns you both a reprieve.

“Hey, wait, wait, wait, I've got something to tell you about the weapon that you're guarding!”

The Cythonnites pause, but their blades barely move. The sharpness of the metal is like ice on your skin, ironically.

“Speak quickly, outsider,” says a voice. An older woman steps forward, wearing an elaborate headpiece and an off-white dress that was probably more impressive when it was first made.

“You should probably know that there’s an El and not one but two Zods on their way to open your little vault and unleash whatever it is that you’re protecting,” Adam says. “Let me and my friend here go and we can stop them, I swear it.”

The woman considers this for a moment and waves a hand. The blade retracts from your neck and you drop to Adam’s side, shielding him as best you can.

“We should kill you. All of you. Outsiders are not welcome here, and now you threaten to unleash Doomsday upon us all.” The way she says the word seems to imply a capital letter, not just the regular old doomsday that Brainiac is planning.

Adam looks as if someone has slapped him across the face.

“Wait, Doomsday? That’s what you’re storing down here? That monster?” His voice raises an octave as he speaks, a mixture of shock and fear lining his words. You’ve never heard him so afraid. You’ve never heard him afraid at all.

“You know of Doomsday? How? It is one of most closely guarded secrets!”

“Hey, calm down, lady! We’re trying to save you all!” You’re not sure where this voice is coming from, until everyone turns towards you. “Well, we are,” you add, nowhere near as impressively. “Our friends are about to make a terrible mistake, and we’re the only ones who can stop them.” 

“It’s true.” Adam picks up where you leave off. “Our friends are being tricked by some asshole named General Zod. He’s the one you want, the one who wants to unleash Doomsday. Let us go after them, promise us safe passage out of here, and you’ll never see any of us again.”

You shoot Adam a glance; is that really a promise he can make? What is this Doomsday thing, and why has it scared him so badly? Perhaps it’d be best to ask these questions when you’re not surrounded by religious fanatics, though.

The woman, clearly the leader of the Cythonnites, considers this for a moment.

“You may have a five minute head start, and then we will follow. If you have not convinced your friends of their folly by the time we arrive we will kill you all, unless you surrender to us.

“Doomsday is held in a cavern not far from here; take this passageway down past three intersections, and then take two sharp rights in quick succession. May Cythonna grant you speed, and a silver tongue.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get a better deal than that right now Adam,” you warn. The Cythonnite in front of you is looking particularly stab-happy.

Adam doesn’t look pleased, but he shouts “Sure, fine, deal!” and then shakes his cuffs at the Cythonnites.

One of them cuts his bindings, and then Adam grabs your hand and flees the chamber without looking back, like the fate of the world depends on you.

Which, given your current run of luck, it probably does.

*****

“Why do I get this feeling that Doomsday is as bad as it sounds?” you pant as you and Adam tear through the corridors towards Seg, Lyta, and Zod.

“Brainiac wants to take Kandor, right? Well, Doomsday’s not quite so picky. It kills everything in its path, and whatever doesn’t kill it just makes it stronger. It’s death incarnate, and we can’t let Seg let it out. This way, I think.” Adam points down another corridor and you both skid around the turn.

“You’ve seen this thing before? In the future?”

“Yeah,” Adam says gravely, as if the memory of it alone is terrifying. “It killed Superman. He got better, long story, but it was one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen. If it gets out now, on a planet of normal Kryptonians? There’s no telling what it’ll do to us all.”

You’ve talked about world-ending threats before; Brainiac has been the main topic of conversation since Adam arrived on Krypton, for Rao’s sake. But you’ve never heard him sound as scared as he is when talking about Doomsday. Whatever this thing is, if it scares him this badly, then you definitely have to stop it – and if Zod wants to release it, then it seems your intuition about him was right as well.

No more talking. You run through the tunnels as quickly as you can, following the Cythonnite’s directions until you come to one final room. Adam slides into the chamber at full speed, shouting “No!” but it’s too late.

Seg, Lyta, and Zod are arrayed around a wall stamped with a peculiar Guild symbol that you’ve never seen before, blood dripping from Zod and Seg’s hands onto a metal plate set into the floor.

“That thing in there will kill us!” Adam tells them. “And everyone in Kandor, everyone in the universe if it can, okay?”

“Seg, please!” You join in, looking straight at your friend – there’s no point appealing to Lyta or Zod, but Seg might still be swayed. “I know Adam kept secrets from us, but he means it – whatever’s behind that door isn’t a solution to our problem, it’s just going to make everything worse!”

But either Seg isn’t listening, or your words have no effect. He nods to Zod and they clench their fists, blood pooling on the plate until a symbol emerges, the twin of the one behind them. The wall slides open with a puff of smoke, as Adam grabs you and pulls you down behind him, shielding you with his body even though it’s likely futile if Doomsday is as bad as he says.

“No!”

You wait for death, for death to spill out of the room and murder you all. But nothing happens. Carefully, you poke your head around Adam’s shoulder and look behind him. Instantly, you’re filled with an unbridled terror – beyond the wall, held in stasis, thankfully, is the most horrifying creature you have ever seen.

It’s vaguely humanoid, but monstrous in appearance, covered in scars with giant spikes protruding from its jaw, arms, and elbows. You can’t see its entire body, but you can tell that it is enormous. Its eyes are shut, but you get the feeling that it could wake up any second now, and that there would be pure hatred in its eyes if it did. There’s no doubt about it – this thing is evil, through and through.

This is Doomsday.

All of you are shocked into silence, and no one is able to move until a cry from the entrance makes you all turn as the Cythonnites come pouring in. They raise their pulse rifles at you all, and you’re not sure whether to give yourself up or try to stop them.

Adam tries to mediate, standing between both groups with his arms outstretched. “Just surrender, okay?” he tells Seg. “They promised not to hurt you.”

“That thing in there, they told me it’s called Doomsday.” Just the sound of the name is enough to inspire fear in you now that you’ve seen it face-to-face. “Okay, I know that name; it’s a soulless killing machine that can’t be destroyed, or controlled.

“Seg, if you let that thing loose it’ll kill everything that it comes across.”

To Seg’s credit, he begins to falter. As the Cythonnite leader takes over and explains further, you can see doubt creep into Seg’s eyes. You implore him to reconsider with your own, but he’s not looking at you, and you dare not interrupt, not with so many hair triggers around you.

Unfortunately, General Zod doesn’t have the same qualms as your friend. He raises his weapon, and you have just enough time to dive into Adam and force him to the floor as the first shots are fired and battle breaks out.

“That didn’t go very well,” you manage to gasp as pulse blasts burn through the air above you. The room holding Doomsday has resealed itself, hiding the horrific creature from view, but it’s as if its presence can still be felt, a fog of war over the room spurring both sides against each other.

There’s a sharp jerk as Adam is pulled from your grasp, and you pull back instinctively against whoever has grabbed him. 

“Let go! Get back here before you get shot!” It’s Seg, thank Rao – no matter what’s happened between them, he doesn’t want Adam to die.

He pulls you both behind a stack of crates, taking pot-shots at the Cythonnites as he does so. Lyta and Zod are on the opposite side of the room, their own weapons blazing hot.

“Seg, we have to get out of here!” you yell, and he rolls his eyes in return.

“No shit!” He searches the room between shots, and you can see a plan beginning to form behind his eyes.

“Are you okay? Did they hit you?” Adam asks, but you shake your head sharply.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me. How did we find ourselves in the eye of a shitstorm?”

“Zod. I told you, he can’t be trusted. If he wants to unleash Doomsday, there’s no telling how far he’s willing to go with all this.”

“I believe you, Adam. That thing...it’s horrible. There’s no way something like that should ever be free. But first things first...”

You peer out around the side of the stack of crates, then pull your head back in just as quickly when a pulse blast rockets towards you. 

“Come on!” Seg shouts, darting out from behind cover and scything his way across the room. Lyta and Zod lay down covering fire as he reaches a grate set into the opposite wall and kicks it out.

You have just enough time to see him, Lyta, and Zod disappearing through the opening before more rifle fire fills the room.

You have to get through that grate. If you stay here, there’s no telling what the Cythonnites will do to you, especially given their lack of enthusiasm towards negotiation earlier.

“Let’s go!”

You grab Adam around the wrist and pull him towards your escape route; you can feel his pulse hammering into your fingers, and you tighten your grip as you run.

For such a small room, it feels as if it takes forever to cross, each footfall accompanied by a silent hope that you aren’t cut down by pulse blasts.

Finally, somehow, you’re close enough, and both of you dive through the grate and land in a heap on the other side. There’s no time to even check for bruises before you’re up and running again, hot on the heels of your friends and General Zod.

They haven’t gotten far. As you approach, you can see Lyta supporting Zod, and the smell of burnt flesh hits your nostrils – he must have taken a hit when you weren’t looking.

“You understand why I had to do that, right? The timeline is too important,” Adam insists. “We’re still friends, Seg.”

Seg seems to have other ideas however, because he replies with more hatred in his voice than you have ever heard before. “You can come with us back to Kandor, find your Zeta-Beam gadget and ride it back to wherever you came from and never come back!” 

His words are filled with anger, intensified by the adrenaline of battle, so you can only hope that what he has said doesn’t spring from a place of truth. It doesn’t stop those words from landing like daggers, plunged straight into Adam’s chest. 

He stops, crestfallen, absolutely devastated. You can’t stop yourself from finding his hand and squeezing it, trying to offer some silent reassurance. He looks down at it, but now it’s his turn to look as if his world has been pulled out from under him.

You can’t blame him, not really. Everything he has come here to do has failed. Seg, the one person who believed him right from the start, even before you, his only hope to save his timeline, now wants nothing else to do with him. You can’t even imagine how painful that must feel.

And what’s more, Seg’s words have done more damage than you thought possible – whereas Adam had been full of hope and ready to try anything only minutes before, now he seems...broken, as if hearing Seg denounce him has shattered any faith in himself that he had left.

“And what about me, Seg?” you shout, suddenly furious yourself. Adam has come all this way to help, and sure, he’s made a few mistakes, but Seg has no right to send him away like that. No right at all.

Seg stops too, nods to Lyta and Zod who hobble away down the tunnel, and then shrugs as if he doesn’t have any other choice.

“What do you want me to say? He lied to us, about everything, right from the start. And now you want me to trust him? I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Not any more.”

“It’s not that simple Seg, if you’d just let him explain-”

“I hate to say this, especially to you, but your feelings are blinding you to the truth. Adam’s not who you think he is, no matter what he says, and I don’t know how to convince you of that before the Cythonnites catch up to us and blow our heads off.

“So it looks like you’ve got a choice to make. Me, or Adam? Who do you trust more? Which side are you on?”

“It doesn’t have to be you or Adam, there’s a third option, Seg! We can all work together, we can stop Brainiac, stop Zod, and save Adam’s timeline all at once. We don’t have to choose sides!” 

Seg looks at you with so much pity that you almost want to cry. “I wish that were true. But you’re naive to think that it is. This has all spiralled totally out of control, and we don’t have time to pick up the pieces right now. So you need to choose. Quickly.”

You look then, from the man you’ve loved for years to the man you’ve loved for mere days, and search your feelings for the answer.

It should be obvious – you’ve known Seg since you were children, you’d follow him anywhere he led… at least you would have, until you met Adam.

Adam, the man from space who has turned your entire world upside down more than once in the past few days. Adam, who has brought you to life, who has shown you things you never thought possible, and made you feel things, both good and bad, that you never thought you would feel.

You will always love Seg, in your own way. But, despite what Adam has done, your heart isn’t with Seg any longer.

“I’m sorry, Seg. But trusting Zod is the wrong move. I trust you, I do. But I can’t trust him. I know what Adam did was wrong – but he wants to make up for it. He wants to save everyone. And I’m not willing to give up on him, not after everything we’ve been through.”

You can’t look at Adam, you have to keep your eyes on Seg, make him realise how serious this is, but you feel him squeeze your hand again.

Seg looks disappointed, but not surprised. He shakes his head, and turns to go.

“I’m sorry. I...wish things could have been different,” he says, and then he leaves you both alone without another word.

The corridor is silent, except for the sound of your breathing and the distant footsteps of the pursuing Cythonnites.

“Thank you,” are the first words Adam manages to say. “Thank you, for standing with me.”

“Don’t make me regret it, Strange,” you tell him, and your own voice sounds foreign to you; you can’t tell if you’re being serious or playful.

Adam takes it seriously. “I can’t promise that. I don’t even know where my head’s at right now; what you said before, what Seg just said, it’s all...all so jumbled. Are you sure this is what you want? You can still go with Seg, I’d...I’d understand.”

“I know you would. But I’ve made my choice – I’m with you. Seg’s the one who needs to understand, and we’ll get him to, I know it. Just not today.”

Adam’s gratitude can’t seem to be communicated in words. Instead, he wraps you in the tightest hug you’ve ever experienced; somehow it’s almost as intimate as a kiss, but it communicates a different set of feelings.

Thank you, it seems to say. Thank you for having faith in me when no one else will. But there’s also an edge of sadness to it as well, a reluctance as he releases you, as if he’s also saying sorry for something that he hasn’t done yet, like he already knows that, no matter how hard he tries, he’s going to disappoint you again.

Even if Adam believes that’s true though, you don’t think it is. He knows now – it’s the truth, or nothing. You can’t build a relationship on a foundation of lies, and he isn’t going to get another chance. Whatever else he is, he’s not stupid. He knows what he has, and what he has to lose.

“Let’s get out of here before those angry nutjobs catch up with us,” he says after your reflective moment together.

You’ve lost count of how many times you’ve been running through corridors, either running towards danger or away from it, in the days since you’ve met Adam.

But it’s worth it. This is where you’re meant to be. And while you hope that maybe you can still convince Seg and Lyta that Zod is the enemy, you know that, if it comes down to it, you will do everything you can to save everyone, even without their help. 

You just hope that, even if you’re determined to try, you won’t have to do it alone. Adam’s confidence is in pieces, and that worries you almost as much as the impending doom facing the planet from Brainiac, and now Zod and Doomsday, too.

You’ve made your choice though. Your friendships may be falling apart, and your relationship isn’t faring much better, but at the very least you know where you stand, and who stands with you.

No matter what else is going on, you know that you want to face the future with Adam at your side, and you’re prepared to accept the consequences of that choice, whatever they may be.


	6. Strange Liaisons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x07 - Transformation

The silence is deafening as you and Adam troop slowly back through the catacombs towards Kandor. Each footfall sends an echo out through the tunnels, filling the void that should be full of planning and stragetizing about the future with a dying heartbeat instead.

Adam is walking in a daze, as if someone has pulled out his personality and his body is operating without paying attention to his surroundings.

You slip your hand into his, matching pace with him, but he doesn’t even register that it’s there. You wave your other hand in front of his eyes, but he doesn’t even blink.

How far he has fallen in such a short space of time. He left the Cythonnites full of renewed energy, spurred into action by your idea that you could potentially achieve both your goals and his, but your altercation with Seg has left him...like this.

The longer he has ruminated on Seg’s words, the more withdrawn he’s become, leaving you with the husk of a man walking along beside you.

If you stop and leave him to wander, there’s no telling where he’ll end up, lost in his thoughts as he is.

You spy a pile of rubble a short distance away, a few rocks that have fallen from the ceiling at some point. They’re flat enough to sit on, so you pull Adam off of his course and lead him over to them. He sits down, still staring off ahead of himself, as if he’s trying to see through time to his present, to see if there’s any chance he might be able to rectify his current situation.

You sit down next to him. There’s no chance of the Cythonnites finding you yet, and with Doomsday back in their hands you could afford to spend a little time with Adam without worrying about General Zod. 

“Adam?” Your throat is hoarse, having gone so long without speaking, and the word comes out as a croak. He doesn’t hear you, or doesn’t care. You’re not sure which would hurt more.

“Adam? Please, talk to me.”

You put your arm around his shoulder and draw him towards you. He slumps over like a child, head in your lap, eyes still gazing unseeing into the distance even as you turn his head so that he faces you.

You’re reminded of your own breakdown, when Rhom died and the weight of everything you were trying to do collapsed on top of you. Adam was there for you then, holding you fast and keeping you safe. Now it’s your turn to be there for him.

You slide your hand absently through his hair, down his face, over and over. No reaction. You’re not sure if he can hear you, but you speak anyway, warming up your throat and hoping that something you say will bring him back to himself, back to you.

“I don’t know what I should say right now. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can say. But I’m going to try, okay? You don’t have to move, or do anything. Just listen.

“Seg was wrong to push you away. If Zod’s as bad as I think he is, it won’t be long before Seg realises it too. Seg’s too good, too pure of heart to let someone like Zod manipulate him for long. He’ll see that he was wrong, and he’ll work with us instead. You’ll see.”

You hit your stride, the words coming easier now, pouring out of you like a waterfall into Adam’s ears.

“I’ve known Seg for a long time. He’s one of the best people I know. He only said what he said to you out of anger; give him a day and he’ll regret it. Then we can explain our plan to him, how we’re going to stop Brainiac, and Zod, and save your future, all at once.

“And once he sees how dedicated we are, he’ll help us out. He’ll choose the right path, I just know it. And Kem, and Lyta, maybe even Nyssa, they’ll all follow him. Together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

You frown a little then, thinking about worst-case scenarios.

“And if they don’t, if we’re on our own, then so be it. We can do this. We’ll save everyone whether they like it or not. But I can’t do it on my own, Adam. As much as I’d like to say I can, I can’t. I can’t bear to see you like this, and I don’t think I can face what we need to face without you. 

“Please, come back to me. Seg might not think that he needs you, but I do. I’ve done things since I met you, things I never thought I’d have the courage or the opportunity to do. You helped me do those things, helped me realise that my life could be more than just serving drinks in a bar and waiting for life to come and find me; I could go out and find it.

“But all of those crazy things I’ve done, all of the crazy things I still have to go and do, they won’t mean half as much if I don’t do them with you.

“I know we’re in a weird place right now. I know that things are different, and they probably won’t go back to the way they were before, but I think this is better. We’ve weathered a storm, and now we have the chance to come out the other side stronger than we were before. But you’re still lost in that storm, and I don’t know how to get you out. 

“I love you, Adam Strange. Come back to me.”

You lean over and kiss him then, your words spent and only one thing left to do. It’s a chaste kiss, your lips barely brush his, but it’s like something from a fable in which the heroes break the curse that binds them with the power of true love. It’s a feeble hope, but you’re out of ideas.

Adam blinks a few times, mouth still slightly open from your contact, and he seems to return from wherever his mind has been. He pushes himself upright gently, one hand on his lips as if the ghost of you still lingers.

“Adam?” you breathe, not sure if he’s present or if his body is still moving on its own.

He looks over at you, like a puppy that’s just been kicked, and you ache to take him back into your arms and hold him, a barrier against the dangerous world around you; but you can’t, not until you know what state he’s in.

“Adam? Are you okay?”

He looks from you to the corridor branching away from you, like he can see Seg wherever he is, retreating further away with Zod, with Lyta, taking Adam’s hopes of saving the timeline with him.

And then he looks back, mouth a grim line of determination as he says, “I have to get back to the Fortress. Can you take me?”

“Sure. Yeah, of course. Whatever you need.” Adam immediately goes to leave, hands in his pockets and deep frown lines on his forehead.

“What are we going to do? Do we need Val’s help with something?”

“I do. I need him to hurry up and fix my Zeta-Beam device. It’s time for me to go home.”

Now you’re the speechless one; your brain refuses to register what Adam has said, and sparks like a skimmer being dismantled for parts. Eventually your synapses reconnect, and words manage to make their way out of your mouth from somewhere.

“Home? What are you talking about? You can’t just leave! What about what we talked about, saving everyone?”

Adam whirls around, throwing his arms wide. “I think it’s pretty clear that Seg’s got all of that under control. He doesn’t need me, he doesn’t need us. He and his new BFF General Zod are going to wreck Krypton all by themselves!”

“BFF? Adam, what? You’re talking like a crazy person, you need to calm down, come and talk to me, please!” You’re half on and half off the rock, not sure whether to pursue him or fall to the floor.

“There’s nothing left to talk about,” he shouts, “I failed! Seg hates me, Brainiac’s probably waiting just down that tunnel, and now General Zod and Doomsday are mixed up in all this too. All I’ve done since I’ve gotten here is make things worse, and to cap it all off, I‘ve screwed up any chance I had of a relationship with you.”

“That’s not true, none of that is true! Do you really think you’ve lost me, when I literally just told my best friend that I’d rather be with you than him?”

Adam wants to argue, but he doesn’t have a rebuttal prepared in time, his anger sapping his reasoning skills.

“If you weren’t here, who knows what would have happened? We wouldn’t know anything about Brainiac, or Zod, or Doomsday and we-”

Adam manages to find his tongue again, but his next words feel like a pulse rifle shot to the stomach. “And your planet would have blown up like it was supposed to. All of history would have happened exactly as planned!”

Adam’s furious, with himself, with Krypton, with the situation he’s in, storming around the corridor futilely, at a loss as to what he should do next. You hope that, deep down, he doesn’t mean what he’s saying. That hope doesn’t stop it from hurting nonetheless.

You cross your arms, on the defensive, trying not to let the pain he’s inflicted come through in your voice.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what you should have done. Maybe that would have been better. Then I’d never have met you, and you wouldn’t be saying these things to me right now.”

Adam stops mid-step, frozen in place as the impact of his words penetrates his anger and he snaps to his senses. Then he’s instantly in front of you, trying to take you into his arms, but you push him away.

“Oh god, look, I’m sorry, please, I didn’t mean-I didn’t mean it like that, okay? Why can’t I do anything right?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you say, fending off his hands. Usually you’d be so happy to touch him, to be touched by him, but right now it’s as if he’s caustic. “You’re here now. There’s no point thinking about what could have happened. We need to deal with what’s happening right in front of us.”

Your tone is strict, and it seems to break Adam’s attempts at reconciliation. His hands drop to his sides, and he nods a few times to himself. 

“No. No, I don’t. I can’t do this on my own. I’ve tried, and look at what happened. I just made everything a hundred times worse. I have to go back. I have to tell the Justice League, find someone who’ll believe me and bring them back, they’ll know what to do. Bruce maybe, or Hal, or Carter, I dunno, just someone more qualified to save the god-damn universe, someone with more experience with all this space stuff. Can we just go back to the Fortress, please?”

You want to argue further, you want to yell, scream, shout, maybe even hit him. But the sadness in his eyes, the pleading look on his face, saps all of the fight right out of you.

You feel your shoulders droop in defeat, and exhale hard.

“Okay. Okay, Adam. If that’s what you want, then I’ll take you back.”

“Thank y-”

“Don’t thank me. Let’s just go.”

You push past him and continue on your journey through the corridors. You hear him scurry to catch up, but he doesn’t draw level with you, as if he’s not worthy of standing beside you any more.

And maybe he’s not. Because he’s forgetting something in his hurry to get back home to find reinforcements, someone to hide behind when he’s really the only hero you need.

Even with Seg and Lyta allied with Zod, he’s not alone. Even if everyone else in the entire universe, across every possible timeline abandoned him, he’d still have you, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to realise that breaks your heart all over again.

*****

You haven’t spoken the entire journey to the Fortress. There were agonizing hours of silence as you crept back through the skimmer port, and flew across the icy wastelands of Krypton, and even now as you set down the skimmer and climb out, walking through the entrance corridor of the Fortress, neither of you says a word. Adam hasn’t even looked at you since your last conversation, ruminating on his choice with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets like they’re too offensive to be on show.

But now, faced with his imminent departure, you can’t stay silent any further, not even out of anger.

“Adam.”

He stops, but doesn’t turn around. 

“My mind’s made up, you know. I’m going back. I’m not going to stay here any long and make this any worse than I have already.”

“Alright. I don’t want to argue with you any more.”

You step close to him, sliding your hands through the loops that his arms make as they stick into his pockets, and lay your head against his back. He stiffens under your touch, but still doesn’t move.

“I just want to...to talk to you, for a little while. I don’t want to leave it like this between us. This tension’s almost unbearable. Another hour or so isn’t going to make any difference, is it?”

He looks over his shoulder at you, a tiny crease between his eyebrows. “What d’you mean?”

“I just...There are still some things left I want to say. And if you’re leaving, I want to know as much as I can about you. Just in case...in case you don’t come back.”

Now he turns his entire body towards you, repositioning your arms so that they encircle his waist instead.

“I’m coming back.” There’s no uncertainty in his voice, no worry, but you’ve seen situations like this enough to know how these things go. 

If you report something to the Guilds, they take over – they deal with things their way, and they don’t consult you about it. If Adam’s League are anything like them, then he’ll tell them about Krypton and they’ll be the ones to come back, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll bring Adam with them when they do.

“Just, humour me. Please?” You don’t want to waste time explaining, or arguing. You’ve done enough of both of those in the last few hours, and time is short.

You want to be cautious; you want to take your time reforging the shaken trust between you. But if Adam’s going to leave, if this could potentially be the last time you’re going to see him, then there’s no time for caution any more.

“Okay, come on. I’m freezing my ass off out here, we can do this inside,” Adam says after a few moments.

You follow him into the main cavern of the Fortress. The hologram of Val-El has his back to you as you arrive, but he turns around in surprise at your appearance.

“Oh, hello. Can I help you with anything?”

“Actually Val, could we have some privacy? We need to talk, and it’s weird if you’re floating around,” Adam informs him.

Val looks affronted, but rolls his eyes and nods. “Of course, come into my home, tell me to leave, that’s perfectly fine. I’ll just flip myself into silent mode, shall I?”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

“Humans don’t seem to have sarcasm, I see.”

“And holograms shouldn’t be programmed with it.”

Val makes a disgruntled noise and then vanishes like a piece of paper being burnt, there one second and gone the next. You feel a little sorry for him, and resolve to apologise next time you see him.

Adam leads you into the middle of the room and you sit on the edge of the main dais. You’re close, your legs touching, and he’s as relaxed as he’s been in days, leaning back with his arms behind him, propping him up. Maybe finally having a clear course of action has taken a little of the weight of two worlds off of his shoulders. He looks at you expectantly as he waits for you to begin.

“I can’t believe we haven’t had time to do this before now. Just sit and talk. It’s been...a whirlwind few days,” you begin lamely.

“I mean, I don’t think we really have time to be doing this right now, if we’re being honest, but I get what you mean.”

“Adam, seriously.”

“Okay, okay, fine. What did you want to say?”

You look away momentarily, composing your thoughts, trying to think of anything that you haven’t already said. You try to order your arguments, make them make sense in your own head, but they won’t stand in line, they won’t fix in place or flow properly.

“Hello?” Adam asks, waving a hand in front of your face. You look back and smile sadly, and then, with one look at his face, you realise that you’re over-thinking this. You put your brain in neutral, and let your heart do the talking.

“You hurt me, you know?”

“I know. I’m sorry I lied about Krypton blowing up. I should have told you, I know that.” If Adam is frustrated at repeating himself, he doesn’t let it show, but that’s not what you meant, anyway. You wave away his apology and redirect him.

“No, not that. What you said earlier, about having to do this alone. You’re not alone. You’ll never be alone while you’re here.”

“But Seg-” 

“Enough about Seg. I know he’s important, he’s Superman’s grandfather or whatever else. But he’s not here. He doesn’t understand, not yet. But I do, Adam. I do. And I’m not going anywhere. While I’m around, you’re never going to be alone.”

Adam’s eyes light up in realisation, and then his face instantly creases up as he searches your own for forgiveness.

“That’s not what I meant before, I didn’t-I know you care about me, I know you’re here. I just meant that I’m not a superhero, I’m not one of the big guns, I can’t save a planet on my own, even with you helping me.”

“But Seg would be enough?”

“No, that’s not-I’m explaining this all wrong!”

“Then maybe it’s your turn to talk.” You sit back from him and wait patiently for Adam to reply. After a few moments and one very deep breath, he does. The words are painfully chosen; he’s not trying to hurt you with them, but he has to speak the truth plainly. He’s making a concerted effort not to lie to you again, as you’d both promised.

“There are certain people in history that stand out, that really affect everything around them. Without saying too much, for Krypton it’s the big Houses; your Els, your Zods, that kind of thing. Seg, Lyta, even General Zod, they’re the ones that history remembers, the ones that chart the course of the planet. If you’re trying to save history, then those are the people you need on your side.

“So, no matter how much help you are, you, or Kem, or any of the other Kandorians out there, it’s not likely that you’re going to be the ones that turn the tide. That’s what I meant; I know you’ve got my back, but without the big guns, all the little pop shooters won’t mean a thing. Does that kind of make sense?”

It does, although you’re loathe to admit it. The idea that you’re inconsequential to history isn’t that big of a surprise; you’d spent your whole life up until this point thinking the same thing. But there’s a hole in Adam’s logic that he hasn’t quite realised.

“What about you? You’ve said it yourself, you’re not a big gun. You’re not super, you’re just a regular hero.”

Adam chuckles darkly.

“I guess I did say that.”

“But you’re here anyway. You’re the one hoping to make the difference. So what makes me any different to you? Just because I don’t have a Rank doesn’t mean I can’t be one of the ones that affects things. And I’m not going anywhere, if I haven’t mentioned that already.”

“Yeah, you most definitely have,” he replies, shaking his head. “You’re stubborn when you want to be.”

“Only when it comes to the people I care about. And I care about you. A lot.”

“And I value your contribution to the war effort,” he says formally, putting on a pompous voice that you expect many of the Ranked speak in without the irony.

“I do though, really. I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t care. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way.”

“It’s okay. I just wanted you to know that you’re not alone.”

“I do know that, I swear.” He reaches out and takes your hand, slowly rubbing his finger across your knuckles.

“So, what’d you wanna know about me? I’m coming back, like I said, but if you wanna ask me things, then let’s do this. I’m an open book.”

Now that you’re on the spot, you’re not really sure. Before today you would have had a myriad of questions for him, but now you don’t even know where to start. Everything is important; you want to know all about him, but if everything is important then nothing springs to mind first.

He shifts his hand on yours, continuing to graze your skin with his, and that reminds you of something you’ve wanted to ask him every time you’ve felt his touch. 

You reach over and take the hand that’s on yours, palm up, and trace the callouses along his fingers with your own, wondering if it makes him tingle as much as it does you.

“Where did you get these?”

“My hands? I was born with them. Now, you meet my friend Vic and he’s got hands he wasn’t born with, that’s an interesting sto-”

“You’re deflecting, Adam. I want to know about you. Not your friends, your Justice League, just you.”

He looks wistful for a second, mind clearly somewhere else as he considers his answer.

“Back home, on Earth, I’m an archaeologist. Or I was, anyway, before the whole hero business kind of took over. D’you have those here?”

You shake your head.

“They’re kind of like...explorers of the past. We dig up old things from history, and see what we can learn from them, about how humans used to live, stuff like that. It’s a lot of hard work, and you have to be really careful so you don’t like, unearth something important and then smash it to pieces.

“The first few times I went on a dig, I cut myself up so bad the head archaeologist chewed me out for bleeding on all the old stuff. Said he didn’t want to know the history of Adam Strange, he wanted to know about the civilization we were looking for.

“I guess, over time, my hands just hardened. They got tired of being hurt, so they made it as hard as possible for it to happen again.”

You trace little circles over the nodules of hard flesh on his hand, enjoying the feeling but troubled now as well.

“So, you can’t feel me doing this?”

“I can, but it’s like it’s...further away than the rest of my skin. Like, if you touch me here,” he says, taking your hand in his free one and moving it up his arm, “then I can feel that much better.”

“Can you reverse it? Or will your hands always be like this?”

“You can undo it, with like moisturisers and stuff, I guess. You just have to soften the skin back down, remind it what it was like before it got hurt so much, let it know that it’s okay to lower its defenses.”

You sit for a second then, digesting this new information.

“They remind me of my heart,” you finally say, fingertips playing about the wispy hairs on his forearm where he has placed your hand. “I watched Seg and Lyta be happy for so long that it hardened over, so it couldn’t hurt me any more.

“And then you came along, and softened it back up; I believe in love for myself again, because of you.”

Adam wants to pull away from you, but you grip his arm fast. 

“I love you, Adam. I do. And I just have this horrible feeling that if you go back to your future, I’ll never see you again, and I don’t want that. Wherever you go, I want to go with you; whatever it takes, I’ll do it; whatever price I have to pay, I’ll pay it. Just don’t make me leave you again. Please.”

Adam looks away from you, down to where your hand is, holding him tightly as if you’ll never let go – and if you had your way, you wouldn’t. 

“I can feel that,” he says again. “I can feel that more than on my hand.”

You move your hand to his chest, over his heart which is beating as if he’s fleeing the Cythonnites all over again.

“Can you feel that?”

“Mmhmm.”

Your hand works its way up his neck, tucking behind his ear as you cup the side of his face.

“Can you feel that?”

Adam nods, the sandpaper of his stubble sliding across your fingers.

You move in closer, twining your legs with his as your face comes to rest a miniscule distance away from him. He’s holding his breath.

“Can you feel this?” 

You dip your head and kiss him, softly, sensually, and Adam murmurs as you do so, no longer capable of words.

“How about this?”

You work your way down the side of his neck, stripping his jacket from him with your free hands. He doesn’t resist as you throw it across the room, kissing across his shoulders, down to his collar bone. He moans low in his throat in response.

Your fingers find the hem of his undershirt and pull it over his head in one easy movement, throwing it to another corner of the Fortress. It isn’t important now, it’s just keeping you from what you want.

Adam sits bare-chested in front of you for the third time, and now you’re finally able to do what you’ve wanted to do since that first time, so long ago in Kem’s tavern. You place one hand on his chest, feeling the warmth of his pulse, the steadily increasing rhythm of his heart as you push him down flat onto the top of the dais.

You crawl on top of him, one leg either side of his body as he sits up, helping you remove your own shirt. Your skin sings as he runs his fingers over your bare torso, and you look down at him, at the man you love, and who loves you in return.

Your eyes linger on the swell of his biceps, which seem specifically shaped for your hands to fit over, and the flat panel of his stomach that just aches to have your mouth upon it.

It’s only as your eyes travel upwards that you notice Adam’s own eyes, gazing up at you with the same hunger that yours are no doubt exuding. No one has ever looked at you like that before – it makes you feel alive.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Adam asks. “What happened to pumping the brakes?”

“Screw the brakes,” you tell him succinctly, and he doesn’t argue. “I want you, Adam Strange. I love you, and I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”

He rises to meet you as you fall into him, the two of you moving together like waves crashing into each other again and again, the heat of your passion keeping you warm on the chill Fortress floor.

Adam is careful; he can instinctively tell that you haven’t done this before, so he guides you through it wordlessly, showing you how best to move so that both you and he enjoy it as much as possible. He doesn’t let his experience intimidate you either; he’s gentle where necessary, rough once you’re comfortable.

All of the things you’ve wanted to do to his body every time you saw it exposed in front of you, you do them all and more. You learn every inch of him, commit him to memory so that you will always have something to hold on to should the worst come to pass and you never see him again.

The time for talking has passed, and you let your bodies communicate all the emotions that neither of you can seem to articulate with speech. 

The conversation between you starts low, like a whisper in the other’s ear, a quiet murmur that builds steadily, building and building until you’re practically bellowing at each other without saying a word. Your inner voices rise to a dual crescendo, and then there’s nothing left to say, nothing left to do. You’re both spent, in every way that matters, and you fall away from each other onto the floor of the Fortress.

You’re not sure how long the pair of you lay there; neither of you speak, and you both drift off to sleep. It’s the first true sleep you’ve gotten since you learned of the threats facing Krypton. Your mind is free of troubles, free of worries, free of everything except for visions of Adam, his face, his body, whirling around within you like a vortex.

You wake with a smile on your face, and your eyes flutter open slowly. You’re greeted with the most wonderful sight you can imagine; Adam Strange, fast asleep, not a care in this or any world.

He finally looks relaxed as he lays there, all of the tension gone from his body. His mouth hangs open slightly, and one hand is thrown across his chest as his head lolls to one side.

In that moment, that perfect moment, you come to a decision.

You get to your feet as carefully as you can, collecting your clothes from where they were discarded in your eagerness. You grab Adam’s jacket and drape it over his sleeping form, protecting his modesty and keeping him warm at the same time.

Then you dress quickly and slip towards the door. On the threshold of the Fortress you look back at Adam, listen to the sound of his quiet snores, and can’t help but smile.

“Val?” you whisper, and the hologram blinks back into existence a short distance away.

“Yes? Am I allowed to come out now?” he asks huffily, and you shush him, finger on your lips.

“What? Not you as well, you were always so poli-”

You point over his shoulder insistently, and he turns around mid-sentence.

“Why is Adam asleep on the floor? Why is he missing his cloth-Ah. I see. No wonder you wanted me to disappear,” he says, the disapointment on his face melting into a knowing smile.

“We didn’t plan on doing...what we did. We were just talking, and then it just happened. Sorry we were so rude before.”

“Think nothing of it,” Val replies, waving your concerns away. “I have seen the way he looks at you, you know. And how you look at him. Even this old program can detect love.”

You blush now; even though you know that this is a hologram, being told this by the face of the great Val-El isn’t something you ever expected to experience.

“Now, is there a reason you’re slipping away into the night without waking your companion?”

“He needs to make a choice, and I can’t be here when he does. I’ve done everything I can to convince him one way or another, but it’s up to him to make the final decision, so I’m going to go back to Seg. Hopefully, Adam will join us when he wakes up.”

“And what did you need me to do?”

“Can you give Adam a message for me, before he does anything else when he wakes up?”

“As long as it’s not vulgar or sexual. I’m an old man, my heart won’t take it.”

You give the hologram a cynical smile, and he shrugs comically. For someone who doesn’t really exist, he’s pretty good company.

“Just tell him...tell him I love him. Tell him that I, that Krypton, doesn’t need any other hero than him. Tell him that if love isn’t strong enough to keep him here, then I understand, and I don’t regret anything that happened between us. 

“But if it is, then he needs to come back to Kandor and help me do what he promised we’d do – stop Zod, stop Brainiac, and save Krypton and Earth. He’ll know where to find me if that’s what he chooses.”

Val listens to your message and inclines his head slightly. Again, no comment, no judgement. Just a friendly ear.

“Received, loud and clear. I’ll relay it once Adam is awake and fully clothed. May Rao speed you on your way, and hopefully speed you both back to each other as well. I’m rooting for you, you know.”

“What do you mean?” You know you need to get away before Adam wakes up, but you can’t help yourself.

“You make each other better, the pair of you. Adam makes you take risks, makes you try new things, experience as much of life as you can. And you bring him out of himself, help him realise that he is more than he knows, more than he thinks he can be. You’re very good together, and I hope he realises that before he makes a terrible mistake.”

“You’re very wise, for a hologram.”

“I was programmed by a very wise man. He would have liked you; I know I do. I’m glad Seg has a friend like you to stand by him during this insanity.”

You look back at the skimmer, and Kandor on the horizon, and sigh.

“I hope I can convince him that I’m still his friend. We all need as many of those as possible right now.”

“Agreed. Now, off you go. Good luck. Hopefully I shall see you again.”

You clamber back into the skimmer and redirect it back towards Kandor. The hologram of Val stands in the doorway, waving solemnly as you take off and fly away.

Your body is screaming at you to go back, to cling to Adam and never let go. But you’ve made your case, you’ve told him all you can. What you said to Val was the truth – Adam needs to make up his mind for himself.

His mind has been a jumble since Zod arrived. The revelations about Krypton’s future, the appearance of Doomsday, the Cythonnites, Seg’s choice, all of it has thrown Adam off-kilter. You just hope that you have helped him make sense of it all, shown him that what you’ve decided to do is possible. There is a way out of this that will save you all, and you can find it together.

You hope that Adam can see it as clearly, believe it as strongly as you do, otherwise your fears might come true, and this may be the last time you’ll ever see him.

*****

Once you’re back in Kandor, it doesn’t take you long to find Seg; there are only a few places he can hide, especially with a wounded General Zod to take care of, and Kem’s tavern at least has a med kit so that’s your first port of call.

Of course you hadn’t expected a warm welcome when you arrived, but the sight of Jayna-Zod pointing a pulse rifle at your chest isn’t exactly what you’d expected either.

“What are you doing here?” she demands as you raise your hands in surrender.

“I could ask you the same thing, Primus,” you retort. “Last time I heard, you were still loyal to the Voice Of Rao. What’s brought you down low into the Rankless sectors?”

“A lot has happened in a very short time, and none of it is your business. Now, what are you doing here?”

“Who is it?” says a familiar voice as Seg pokes his head around the corner. His eyes widen in both recognition and shock, and he rushes out between you and Jayna.

“Whoa, whoa! Weapons down! They’re not a threat!”

Jayna looks unconvinced, but she complies begrudgingly. 

“You better know what you’re doing, Seg,” she grumbles with another dirty glance over at you before disappearing back inside the tavern.

As soon as she’s gone, Seg whirls on you.

“What do you think you’re doing back here? I thought you and Adam-”

“I didn’t come here to argue, Seg. I’m here to help.”

“How am I supposed to believe you? You left us down there, after everything Adam did, everything he kept from us!”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. You’re not in the mood to explain everything that’s happened, and right now you’re not even sure if Seg deserves an explanation. He’d ditched Adam the first chance he got, and hadn’t given him a chance to explain, so why should you do it for him now?

But despite everything, Seg is your friend, and he needs you now even if he doesn’t know it.

“It’s so much more complicated than you think it is, Seg. We’re all on the same side, we’re just trying to go about it in different ways. All you need to know right now is what I said already – I’m here to help. You’re still trying to stop Brainiac, right?”

Seg appears conflicted, as if he wants to turn you away, but he nods slowly.

“So, you need another pair of hands?” You raise your hands again and wiggle your fingers to illustrate.

Another slow nod. 

You look around Seg towards the front door of the tavern and motion with your chin. “Are you going to let me in then?”

One more reluctant nod.

“Just...be warned. We’ve got some...unorthodox help,” Seg says obscurely.

“More unorthodox than Lyta’s time-travelling son from the future, and her trigger-happy mother?”

Seg blinks, as if realising for the first time just how insane your lives have become.

“Okay, maybe not that unorthodox, but still, prepare yourself.”

You shoulder past Seg into the tavern, and sure enough, there are the faces you expect – Lyta, Jayna, and the General. Kem is still here too, of course, pouring himself a very, very stiff drink.

Nyssa is a surprise however, and along with Jayna she’s the last person you expected to see here. A lot really has happened if she’s throwing in her lot with Seg. 

She’s also the first person to address you when you make your appearance.

“Well, well. I thought I’d see you again, but not quite under these circumstances.” She’s dressed like a Rankless, a true rags to riches transformation, but her scowl is still that of a well practised Guild member.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” Lyta spits, but you ignore her and address Seg instead.

“Adam...might join us. I hope he does. But right now it’s just me. So give me a gun, and tell me the plan.”

“The plan is to kill the Voice Of Rao,” Jayna tells you bluntly. At the look of shock on your face, she elaborates further.

“The Voice has been infected by this Brainiac parasite, and is in a position of power with influence over all of Kandor. We need to expose it to the populace, and get rid of it once and for all before it solidifies that influence and we lose the city entirely.”

You look to Seg for clarification, and he nods sadly.

“It’s true. It’s not the best plan, but it’s the only one we’ve got right now. Even if we don’t kill him, if we can show all of Kandor that the Voice isn’t Kryptonian any more, they’ll turn against him. Strength in numbers – Brainiac can’t kill an entire city, especially if he wants to tear it out of the ground and keep it for his little collection.”

You’re not so sure about that. But you don’t have any better plans right now, and the last thing you want to do is turn up and throw everything into even more disarray.

Your friends are wary of you, understandably. You left Seg and Lyta alone in the tunnels to fend for themselves. You can’t remember the last time you spoke to Kem. The easiest way to regain their trust is to keep your head down and go along with their plan.

You’re equally wary of your new companions, if you’re being honest. You certainly don’t trust Zod, not at all. Jayna feels like a woman who has lost everything, which makes her unpredictable. And Nyssa is almost a complete mystery to you – even if Seg trusts all of them, you’re going to be keeping an eye on them yourself, just in case.

As you sit and listen to their plan, your mind inevitably wanders back to Adam. What did he decide to do? 

Maybe in a few moments he’ll come running through that door, the same way he did the first time you met him, and finally you’ll all be reunited and fighting alongside each other.

Or maybe he’s already back in the future, talking to his Justice League, and being told that he’s done enough, that he can’t come back here, that he’ll never see you again.

Maybe is all you have right now, and it feels like you’re falling, trying to grab hold of the very air itself; impossible, but you have to try otherwise you’ll certainly die.

Maybe is what you cling to, as the hour grows later and you take your places. The pulse rifle is heavy in your hands. You’ve never shot anyone before. Lyta has assured you that it’s easier than you think. Point, and shoot.

If her advice is meant to be reassuring, it isn’t. It just makes you worry even harder about what will happen if you manage to screw up something so simple. And it really shouldn’t be that simple to shoot people, anyway.

But you take aim, wishing with all your heart that Adam were here to steady your breathing, to steady your beating heart, but he’s not. Wherever he is, it’s not here, and you’ll have to do this without him, no matter how hard it’ll be.

You steel yourself. You remember what Val said – Adam makes you better, makes you take risks. You can do this. You can show Adam what you’ve learned from being with him. All you have to do, is point and shoot.

And then the Voice explodes into a fireball, revealing himself as more than a Kryptonian all on his own. To the population of Kandor he is no longer the Voice Of Rao, but he’s not Brainiac, either.

To them, he is Rao himself, come to walk among the multitudes. With one move, he has ruined your only plan to stop him and made your job infinitely more difficult.

And yet, despite all of that, despite the fact that Brainiac is one step ahead of you, despite the fact that you’re working with people you’re not sure you can trust, despite the fact that Kandor might be only hours away from falling, there’s only one thought at the front of your mind, as much as you try to push it away:

Where is Adam Strange?


	7. Strange Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x08 - Savage Night

“If I spend one more moment cramped up in here with you lot, I am going to go stir-crazy!” 

Kem is in a good mood today. Having Seg, Lyta, Zod, Nyssa, Jayna, and now you practically living in his tavern has set his nerves so far on edge that they’re ready to take a flying leap regardless of the rest of his body, and he’s nearing at breaking point.

General Zod opens his mouth to no doubt say something scathing or terrifying (possibly both), but you take Kem around the shoulders and draw him away from where your friends and reluctant allies are huddled around a table attempting to hammer out a new plan to oppose Brainiac.

“I think we need to take a walk, don’t you? Get some fresh recycled air into those lungs.” You tap Kem on the chest, and lean closer to his ear. “If you blow up at Zod, I’m pretty sure he’ll twist your head off your shoulders and drink your best ale out of your skull. So maybe best not to start on him, hmm?”

Kem bites his lip to stop his retort before it can blossom, instead nodding vigorously and allowing you to pilot him out of the tavern and onto the streets of Kandor.

The Voice of Rao’s false revelation that he is in fact Rao himself has set all of Kandor ablaze with movement. No one seems to know what to do with themselves. The Guilds are fearful of losing what little power they have left, while the Rankless are all clamouring for a glimpse of this new God – his proclamation that there will be no more Ranked or Rankless has almost inspired them into uprising and taking what they want from the Ranked themselves.

You’re not sure what Brainiac’s plan is here – possibly just to sow as much chaos as possible so that he can arrive and take the city without any organized resistance.

But that’s where you and your friends come in. You’re not letting him get away with this; you just need to come up with a new plan so that you can renew your focus, but that’s easier said than done.

And there’s that nagging thought in the back of your mind that won’t let you concentrate properly too. It’s been nearly a day, and there’s been no sign of Adam. 

The idea that he might have gone back to the future and isn’t coming back is gnawing at you. Despite his reassurances, despite everything you’d done to make him want to stay, despite trying to convince yourself of the contrary, you can’t help but feel like there had to have been something more you could have done to convince him to stay. You’re not sure what exactly, but the very idea won’t let you rest.

“So, heard from Adam lately?” Kem asks, as tactful as ever. You’ve left the tavern behind now, and are walking aimlessly around the streets. The silence must have been bothering him, lost in your thoughts as you were.

“If you must know,” you say through gritted teeth, “I haven’t.”

“Oh, I know you haven’t. That’s why I’m asking. You need to talk about it, and I guess that honour falls to me since there’s no chance of you talking to Seg about it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it at all.”

“Tough. If you haven’t noticed, there’s an alien in charge of our city, which is threatening to tear itself apart. Now’s not the best time to be moping over your first boyfriend.” 

He doesn’t mean them harshly, they’re said with his usual light tone, but his words are like a slap across the face even so. Maybe a much needed one.

“I’m not moping. I’m just...worried. I don’t know where he is, or what he’s doing, or even if he’s still on Krypton, and I’m just scared that-that something’s happened to him, or he’s not coming back, and I just can’t think straight not knowing!”

Kem looks at you with his kindest expression, the one he’s always reserved for Ona up until now. Seeing it on his face almost makes your resolve break. You’re meant to be the strong one; how many times had you said that to yourself?

“You’re allowed to be worried,” he says, taking you off-guard. “Look, I know you haven’t had much experience with relationships, and I know I’m not exactly a role model for them either, but I know how some of this stuff works, okay? Just take my word for it.”

You remain silent. Kem’s never talked to you like this before, so you’re not sure how to react.

“Adam’s...Adam’s a dick, honestly. He’s brash and rude and arrogant, and most of the time I want to smack him in his stupid mouth.”

“The feeling’s mutual, I can assure you,” you tell Kem with a smile, thinking back to the anger that Kem could inspire in Adam, the way his mouth would draw itself into a thin line when he was reaching his limit...and now you’re sad all over again.

Kem meanwhile ignores you and hits you with another verbal haymaker instead. 

“Despite all of that though, he cares about you. You’re the only person he seems to give the time of day, and he listens to you when you talk, even more so than he does Seg. He just...changes, when you’re around. I’m sure that, wherever he is right now, whatever he’s doing, he’s thinking about you too, and he’s doing everything he can to make his way back to you.”

You hope that’s true. You really do.

“Why aren’t you with him, anyway? I thought you two were basically inseparable. When Seg told me about what happened with the Cythonnites, I thought the next time we saw you would be with side by side with him.”

You really don’t want to talk about this part with Kem, but you’ve already opened up, so what else did you have to lose? Plus he didn’t seem like he’d use this to tease you – at least, not right now.

“Well, he and Seg had an argument, about Krypton and the best way to save it.”

“Or not save it, as the case may be.”

“Yeah, exactly. But Seg telling him off, telling him to go back home, it smashed his confidence into a million pieces. He wanted to go back to the Fortress, get his ride home fixed, and just take off.”

“But you talked him down off the ledge?” Kem prompts when you fall silent. Relieving the conversations of the previous night is more painful than you thought it’d be; you can hear the despair and desperation in Adam’s voice all over again and it hurts just as much this time as it did then.

“Sort of. I just told him the truth, and offered him an alternative. We can all work together, we’re all after the same thing. I know Seg doesn’t want to hear it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. And then we...we...”

“By Rao, you’re blushing!”

“Kem, shut up!”

You’re suddenly a child again, being taunted by your friends for doing something embarrassing, which just makes Kem laugh even harder.

“You and Adam had sex. I can’t believe this. Your first time, and it was with an alien from another planet. Literally frazzled my brain here.” He’s got his hands behind his head, eyes wide, like the information really is too much for him to handle.

“So anyway, we...made love, had sex, whatever you want to call it-”

“Did the nasty like two mating beasts from-”

“Kem, seriously, you asked me to talk about this and now you’re taking the piss.” You give him your patented glare, and he relents, reluctantly.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Please continue.” Kem stands with his hands clasped as if he’s at one of Rao’s temples paying his respects, a total flip in demeanour; for comedic effect, of course.

“I left him in the Fortress. I’d said everything, did everything I thought I could to convince him to stay, so I left him there to make his own decision. And now he’s not here, and I feel like I should have said more, done more, stayed with him, something!”

Kem looks as if he’s contemplating your predicament, as if he’s intimately familiar with having an intertemporal boyfriend who may or may not have returned to his own timeline. Somehow you doubt he’s as qualified as he thinks he is, but before you can comment he nods triumphantly to himself and puts both hands on your shoulders.

“Look, we’ve known each other for a long time. Almost our entire lives. So I’d say we know each other pretty well, yes?”

You nod, unsure where he’s going with this line of thinking.

“I know what you’re like when you care about people. I’ve seen the lengths you’ve gone to for Seg – you think I didn’t know about your little rescue mission in the Outlands with Lyta? Or how about me? The shifts you’ve covered, the support you’ve given me running that bar? There’s nothing you won’t do to help your friends. Absolutely nothing.

“So trust me when I say to you that if Adam Strange has gone back to Earth after seeing what a fantastic person you are, after being loved as fiercely as you love someone, then he’s the biggest bloody fool on this or any planet.”

You don’t want to cry right now. You don’t. But your eyes aren’t listening to your brain, and you choke back a happy sob as Kem finishes, his words hitting you right in the heart instead of the face this time.

“Thanks, Kem. That’s sweet of you to say. I just hope it’s true.”

“Oh, it is. And if he doesn’t turn up soon, I’m going to go to the future myself and knock some bloody sense into him. If you think I’m letting him turn you into an intergalactic one-night stand, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“And you ruined it.” 

“Can’t let you think I’m completely nice now, can I? I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

“If you say so.”

Kem rolls his eyes, and breathes a sigh of relief. “I suppose I should go back to the rabble before they have some kind of argument and shoot each other. I don’t know what they’d do without me, honestly. But thanks for this, y’know? Getting me out of there before I said something I’d regret.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you for always knowing what to say, even if you don’t always say it in the nicest way.” You punch him playfully in the shoulder, and he recoils animatedly, arms flailing.

“Alright, I’m gunna head back and put some ice on this bruise.” Kem holds his arm across his body as if you’d broken it, and you snort with laughter. “You coming?” 

“In a bit. I just need a minute to myself.”

“Sure.” He says no more and departs, heading back through the corridors towards your friends and (supposed) allies.

You lean up against a wall for a moment, eyes closed, head tilted to the sky as if offering prayers to gods you know aren’t going to come and help you even if they do exist.

Kem’s right. There really isn’t anything else you could have done, and nothing else you can do right now. Everything is in Adam’s hands, and all you can do is wait and make sure that there’s a Krypton left for him to come back to when he comes back. If he comes back. No, when he comes back. He’s coming back, damn it.

“Psst,” says a voice.

“Leave me alone. I don’t want to join your revolution, I’ve got enough problems of my own.” You keep your eyes firmly closed and wave away whoever is trying to pester you. 

“Psst,” it repeats, more insistently.

“Seriously, I’m not in the mood. Rao can suck it, I’m not interested.”

“Psst!” 

Your eyes snap open in anger. Then your legs seem to give out from under you and you’re leaning even harder against the wall as you take in the person standing in front of you, mischievous grin on his face and his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Adam.

You’re not sure if he comes to you or if you find your feet again and go to him, but you’re suddenly in each other’s arms, a sob escaping through your smile as you bury your head in his shoulder.

He holds you tight, and that’s how you know he’s real. You know that feeling intimately; there’s no other feeling like it on this world or any other. He’s not a hologram, he’s not a hallucination, he’s Adam, he’s real, he’s here.

“I thought...I thought I’d never see you again,” you whisper, and Adam relaxes his arms long enough for you to lean back and look him in the eye. His hands remain on the small of your back, yours knotted behind his head, and all you can see, all you ever want to see again, is him.

“I was going to go. I was. I thought about what you said, and what I assume you told Val to say to me too.”

You look away guiltily, but only for a second before the gravitational pull of his smile entraps you once again.

“And I realised that I’d be a fool to go back now. To leave a job half-finished. To leave you behind.”

You don’t need to hear anything else. You move in for a kiss, but Adam tenses beneath you, and you stop mid-motion.

“What? What is it?”

“I just...” Now he looks away, ashamed. He can’t look at you as he finishes his confession. “I know what I need to do. And I don’t think you’re going to like it. I know Seg definitely won’t. And we said we wouldn’t keep secrets from each other, so I want to tell you, but I don’t think...”

“Adam,” you say sternly. “Just tell me. Whatever it is, I can take it.”

“I still want to do what you said, try and save everything, Krypton, Superman, all of it. But I think, in order to do that, I’m going to have to kill General Zod. There’s no way he’ll stop otherwise.”

Only now does he look back at you, conflict in his eyes, but his mouth set in grim determination. “I understand if you hate me. If you can’t be with me if that’s what I have to do. But Zod’s a maniac, and one way or another he has to be put down.” 

You search Adam’s face for the truth, his truth at least, and you can tell straight away that he means every word he says. The plan still stands – but there’s a last resort option on the table that wasn’t before.

You don’t trust Zod, you haven’t since he first appeared. But do you really think he deserves to die? From what Adam told you before, Zod will be a war criminal in Krypton’s future, and one of Superman’s greatest enemies in Adam’s present. Plus there’s the fact that he wants to unleash a homicidal killing machine on Krypton, consequences be damned. But even so…

“I understand, Adam. I do. If that’s what you need to do, then I won’t get in your way. But you have to promise me that you’ll try everything else first, and that killing Zod is the final option.”

“I can agree to that. But if it’s the only way left, then I have to do it. I have to. And I get if that’s too much, if-”

“If you really think it’ll help Krypton,” you interrupt, trying to reassure him of his doubts, “if it’ll help us do what needs to be done, then I’m not going to let it stop what’s happening between us. Of all the people in the world, Zod is the last one I’d let interfere with how I feel about you.

“And if you have to do it, I’ll be there for you. I’ve never…I’ve never killed anyone before, but I’ve seen Sagitari who have. It takes a toll on them, and if you need help to carry it, then I’m prepared to shoulder that burden with you.”

“Of all the people in the universe, I don’t think killing General Zod will weigh that much on my conscience.”

“Even so. I’m here if you need me.”

Adam smiles gratefully, and this time he’s the one that moves in for the kiss. 

It’s a familiar feeling, but subtly changed; you’ve been through something together now, something that makes all of your kisses seem more intimate, more connected, because the connection between you has only grown deeper.

“So, what happens now?” you ask when you finally part. “Are you coming back to the tavern?”

“I doubt I’d even get in the door before Zod shot me. Nah, I think I need to speak to Seg first. I don’t want to do this without him, but I know how he feels about me right now. I wanna clear the air, try and explain a bit before I go straight to shooting people.”

“Probably wise,” you concede. “I can speak to him, if you like. He might listen to me, maybe. I’m not really sure where I stand with him any more.”

Another grateful smile.

“That’d be great. Did I see Kem around here? Maybe I can ask him to put in a good word for me too.”

“He’s heading back to the tavern, but if you take that alleyway,” you say, pointing across at a small space between two buildings just wide enough for a person to slip through, “you’ll be able to head him off.”

“Great. Look, I’ll see you again soon, okay? I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

“You better not.” You manage to kiss him once more, just quickly, before he’s gone.

You set off yourself, taking an alternative, more long-winded way back to the tavern so you’ll avoid Kem and Adam and give them space to talk. It also gives you time to think.

No matter what else you believe, you know that Adam is a good man. He has his faults, and he’s not infallible, but at his core he’s...he’s a hero, even if he doesn’t believe it. He’s a hero to you, and there’s nothing he can do to change that, no matter what he thinks.

But, despite that, you really hope that it doesn’t come down to him or Zod. Because in that situation, you’re really not sure who’d come out on top, or where your friends would stand in the aftermath. That’s one situation you hope you never have to experience.

*****

Kem is nowhere to be seen when you arrive back at the strangely empty tavern. Adam has either co-opted him for longer than you thought, or he’s gotten lost. Either way, it’s just you and Seg for now.

“Where is everyone?” you ask, looking around in case someone’s hiding out of sight.

Seg’s leaning over the bar, drink in hand, pulse rifle laid out before him. You remember the feeling of one of those, the weight of both the weapon and the responsibility of holding people’s lives in your hands; you’re not eager to repeat that experience any time soon.

“Recruitment drive,” Seg says shortly. “Enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts.”

You slip onto the bar stool next to him and glance across. His expression is unreadable, clouded with too many feelings at once.

“You look like you’ve got things on your mind,” you say, slightly redundantly since you all do at the moment, but you’re not sure how else to start the conversation.

Seg drains his glass with a grimace and shakes his head.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start these days. It’s all just so confusing. Time travel. Aliens from other planets. Lyta, Nyssa. Romance should be the least of my problems right now, surely.”

“The heart doesn’t pay much attention to what’s going on around it. It just knows what it wants.” You never thought you’d be saying something like that from experience, and yet here you are.

Seg’s eyebrows knit together as if realising something for the first time.

“You and Adam. You’re really a thing now. Like, a proper thing.” Alcohol makes him eloquent.

“We’re working on it,” you admit. A few days ago, this type of conversation with Seg would have had you blushing hard, and yet you’re talking about it easily; only friendship between you now, rather than unrequited love.

“I’m sorry about what I said to him, Adam. Telling him to go back. I’ve ruined that for you.”

You look shifty, and Seg’s jawline tightens. You notice, as you always do, but it doesn’t send your heart into palpitations as it had previously.

“Yeah, about that...Adam’s...not exactly gone.”

“Somehow, I had a feeling he wouldn’t listen. He kind of just does what he wants.” He reaches out for the bottle in front of him, but you whisk it away before he can grab it.

“He wants to talk to you, Seg. He knows how it all sounds, that he came back here to make sure the planet explodes, but it’s more complicated than that. We’ve got a plan, a way to make sure everyone gets what they want. He just wants to apologise, and to explain, if you’ll let him.”

Seg looks incredulous, and storms away from the bar.

“He lied to me from the start. He lied to you! He’s here to make sure that we all die – how can he possibly think that I’ll forgive him for that? How can you, for that matter? I know love blinds us to the faults of the people we love, but surely you can see what he did was wrong?”

You swivel on the bar stool and face him. He’s beautiful when he’s angry, dark eyes focused, cheekbones hard against his skin. 

“I know what he did. And I know what he means. I sat down and actually talked this all through with him, so I understand. That’s all he wants from you; to talk, so that you can understand too.”

“How can you believe anything he says after he lied to us about something so important?” Seg glares across at you, but you shrug it off; you haven’t done anything wrong, he doesn’t have any right to be mad at you. You wonder if he realises that he’s repeating himself, making the same arguments that he made before. Maybe he’s trying to convince himself as much as he is you.

“I wondered something like that myself; how was it that I could look past what he did so easily? I mean, it took me a little while, sure. I won’t lie and say I didn’t feel a little betrayed. But I do feel like I came to terms with it pretty quickly, all things considered, and there’s a good reason for that.” 

“Do tell.”

“I never really liked Rhom, did you know that?”

This takes Seg aback, and he looks at you with eyes narrowed in confusion. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Rhom was always so sure that Rao was going to save her and Ona from their lot in life. That he’d swoop down in his blazing chariot and take them away to something better. I never understood that. How could they look around at the Rankless and think that a god would want people to live like this?

“But I get it now. Well, I don’t get it, but I understand it. I understand what that feeling is, thinking, hoping that something will happen, even if you’ve had no evidence that it will, or even evidence to the contrary - it’s faith. Rhom had faith in Rao to rescue them, and he didn’t. But I’ve got faith in Adam, and together, I think we can actually do something.

“I believe in him, despite what he’s done. He’s not perfect, I know that. But he has the best intentions, and I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt with this. 

“And you can say I’m naive again, or stupid, or blinded by love, or whatever else you think of me. But I know Adam, more than any of the rest of you, because I’ve taken the time to get to know him, and I know he’s a good person. You would too, if you just gave him the chance.”

Seg scoffs and shakes his head, pacing backwards and forwards, his anger stopping him from sitting still.

“You’re ridiculous. You spend a week with someone who shows you the slightest bit of affection and fall head over heels with him. Now you follow him around like a puppy, hanging off his every word, and expect him to save us when what he actually wants to do is let us all burn.”

Seg’s words sting. Some of it is the alcohol, you know that. But drunken comments always come from a place of truth. You want to rage back at him, call him out for all his bullshit, but instead you find yourself oddly calm.

“You think you’re such a good judge of character, don’t you?” Seg says dismissively.

“More than you at this point, yeah. You don’t know me at all. You think I’m blind, or stupid? You can’t even see what’s right in front of your face.”

Seg raises an eyebrow suspiciously, his confusion halting his pacing. “Now what are you talking about?”

These next words should stick in your throat. They used to be the hardest thing you could ever say out loud. Now they flow easily and simply, dropping from your lips like pebbles instead of the precious gems they once were.

“I love you, Seg. I’ve loved you for...probably as long as I’ve known you. I love your eyes, and your smile, and the way your jaw clenches when you’re mad. I love your conviction, your heart, the way you never give up, even with something as insurmountable as Brainiac in front of you.

“I love how strong you are, how you’re so confident in yourself no matter what the Guilds or other people tell you to be. And when you and Lyta got together, you damn near broke my heart.”

Seg’s shocked, and sinks onto one of the nearby tables as he digests your words. “I...I didn’t know, I’m so-”

“You don’t need to apologise. You didn’t do anything wrong. I never told you, and you never noticed. You don’t need to talk, you just need to listen.”

Seg doesn’t argue. It’s interesting how often those lines work on the men in your life.

“You’re my best friend, Seg. No matter what we go through, no matter my feelings, you’re my best friend, and I love you for that too. I don’t think there’s anything you can do that can make me stop loving you.

“But the way you’re treating Adam, the way you’re treating me now? It’s not right, Seg. You’re willing to listen to Zod, who wanted to unleash Doomsday, that monster that literally radiated evil out onto our city, but Adam’s suddenly the enemy?”

You slide from your stool now too, stalking towards Seg as cold anger finally oozes out of you, fashionably late to the party.

“You think I’m naive, Seg-El. But you don’t know a thing about me, or Adam. You’ve written us both off as useless, and you couldn’t be more wrong. We’re fighting for this world, for Adam’s future, for everyone, and you’re not even willing to sit down and hear what we have to say because you’re too wrapped up in your own failed plans.”

You walk past him, and he doesn’t follow. You put one hand on his shoulder as you go, the other balled up next to you as silent tears streak your face.

“I love you, Seg. I’ll love you until the day I die. But I’ve never been more disappointed in you than I am right now.”

You leave. He doesn’t follow.

As you step out into the hall, Kem finally appears. He takes one look at you and his face wrinkles with concern.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

But you breeze past him without a word, running at full pelt through the hallways of Kandor, running as hard and as fast as you can away from Seg; for the first time in your life, you can’t bear the sight of him.

How dare he treat you like that? How dare he accuse you, when he has no idea what’s going on around him? He thinks he’s the hero here, when all he’s done is judge you and make terrible decisions that have just made everything worse.

You’re probably being too harsh on him; he’s tried his best, you know that. But hearing him rage about Adam, about you, has caused a momentary drought in sympathy within you.

Your feet hit the floor hard, sending vibrations through your body which is already threatening to shatter into pieces. You keep running for what feels like forever, and only when you cannot run a single step further do you sink to the floor and finally let yourself break.

*****

Adam is leaning against a wall nonchalantly as you approach a few hours later. He looks as troubled as you feel; you’re still trying to shake off the fog that has settled in over your mind since your fight with Seg.

You can’t remember if you’ve ever snapped at him that hard before. If you have, the reasons why escape you. This is perhaps the first time you’ve done that, and you’re not sure what’s going to happen next. In a time when you really need to be united, you’re doing a great job of pushing people away.

“You don’t need to tell me, I already know Seg’s not comin’,” Adam sighs as you approach. “I spoke to Kem, who told me in no uncertain terms that I’m an idiot for even trying, and that I should just go home. I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

“And every time you hear it, you’ll hear me telling you that you should stay. No one seems to have any time to pay attention to you, to us, and it’s going to bite them in the arse sooner or later.”

Adam looks taken aback by the venom in your voice. “Are you okay? Did something happen with Seg?”

You consider not telling him, brushing it off as nothing, but you’d promised no secrets, and so you take a deep breath and relate the events of earlier in the tavern to him.

By the time you’re finished, Adam looks about ready to march down to the tavern and slug Seg the same way that Seg had punched Adam himself a few days earlier. 

“I swear to god, how Superman can be so god-damn nice when his grandpa can be such a tool, I dunno. He’s got no idea, none at all.”

You move in close and prop yourself against the wall next to Adam, hoping that your proximity will calm both of you down. You lean your head onto his shoulder, feeling some of his anger seep away out as you do. Likewise, you feel yourself calming, the fog lifting.

“I know, I know. But he’s our friend. And probably our only hope right now. We’re going to have to try again, or come up with something else.”

Adam’s restless beneath your touch, as if he wants to go running through Kandor as you did. He squirms at the very idea of talking to Seg again so soon.

He slides his Zeta-Beam device out of his pocket and holds it out in front of you. You haven’t seen it up close before; it’s oddly beautiful. It fits in the palm of Adam’s hand, roughly spherical with the tops cut off, like a squashed cylinder. Its simple style betrays its complex function. One press of a button and Adam can be whisked away through space and time.

“Val fixed it all up for you?” you ask, running a finger over the smooth surface of the device.

“Yeah. All ready to go. One click, and I’ll be home again. Like everyone seems to want me to be.”

“Not everyone,” you remind him softly.

“This isn’t mine, you know. I didn’t make this.” There’s a sadness to his voice now, even more than before, like a caged bird finally being freed only to find itself in a slightly larger cage than before.

“What’d you mean?”

“I stole it, from some very clever people, and convinced myself that it was meant to be mine. They told me it wasn’t, and I argued with them and did what I wanted to do anyway because I thought I knew better.

“Everyone keeps telling me that what I’m doing is wrong, that I should just give up and go home. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m not a hero, no matter how much I wanna be.”

“I thought it was my turn to feel sorry for myself. You should wait your turn.” Your joke is well-intentioned, but Adam just sighs and puts the Zeta-Beam device back into his pocket. 

“Hey. Look at me.”

He turns his head slightly, his eyes filled with sadness, the corners of his mouth drooping at the edges. You kiss them gently, and rest your forehead on his when you’re done.

“How many times do I have to tell you? You’re who you choose to be. You taught me that. I could still be waiting tables at Kem’s, throwing out drunks and serving Kandorian Ale for the rest of my life. But you showed me that I can be more. Now you have to listen to me when I tell you that, if you want to be a hero, you will be. Nothing Seg, or Kem, or whoever you took the Zeta-Beam device from says can change that.”

“I’m glad you’re here, you know?” Adam says after a while. “I dunno if I’ve told you that before. I know I’ve said I love you, but I want you to know how much I appreciate having you here. Especially right now.”

“Like I said, I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s good, because there’s one more secret I have to tell you.”

You step back, face passive, and let him speak. You’re not sure what to expect; it couldn’t be worse than coming back to the past to ensure that Krypton exploded, could it?

“I left someone behind when I took the Zeta-Beam device, on Rann. That’s another planet, a long way from here, but that’s not important. She was...she was special.” Adam has a wistful look in your eye that you can’t help but feel jealous of, despite everything. He doesn’t notice, thankfully.

“She was special, and I let her down. I seem to keep letting everyone down. Her, Seg, you, even if you won’t admit it – I know I’ve hurt you, don’t deny it.”

You stop yourself from replying, and relax. That’s behind you. You’re on the same page now, and that’s all that matters.

“I’m tired of letting people down. I’m tired of disappointing people, disappointing myself. I want to be better. Someone people can look up to. Someone worthy of being called a hero.”

And then he looks you dead in the eye and his next words are infused with longing, with desperation; this is a tipping point for him, you can feel it. Your response will define whatever happens next for him.

“Will you help me? Will you help me be a hero?”

Your response leaves your lips before you even have time to think – you know that it holds the potential to make or break him, but your mind isn’t listening to you. All you want to do is alleviate his pain, whatever the cost. 

“Of course I will, Adam. Whatever you need.”

His mouth trembles for a moment, and then the edges twist upwards into a smile, then a grin, and then he’s kissing you and you can’t tell what he looks like any more, only how he makes you feel.

With his arms around you, his mouth on yours, one hand in his hair and the other on his cheek, you feel safe. You feel secure. You feel like, no matter what happens, whatever Brainiac or Zod throw at you, you’re going to be alright as long as you have Adam beside you.

“Do you trust me?” Adam whispers in your ear in a breath between kisses. You nod. How can he even ask that any more?

“That’s good, because I have a really, really bad plan.”

*****

You wait impatiently outside of Daron-Vex’s office, leaning up against a table while Adam paces the room, the Zeta-Beam device still clamped tightly within his grasp as if it might teleport away without him if he lets go. He’s managed to find one of his ‘cigarettes’ from somewhere, or maybe he made it himself, you’re not sure, and it dangles from his lips.

“Are we really comfortable getting Daron to do our dirty work for us?” you ask him.

It turned out that Adam’s ‘really, really bad plan’ involved telling Daron-Vex all about Seg, Zod, and the others that were resisting Brainiac in the hopes that he’d dash their rebellion before Zod did something you couldn’t undo.

“I feel like we’re running out of time, and this was the best of all our bad options. Daron can do his little power trip thing, get Zod out of the way, and then we can rescue our friends and stop Brainiac on our own.” 

You’re still uneasy with it all, and it must show on your face because Adam crosses the room and fixes you with a stare.

“Hey. I know what I said to him sounded bad. But I had to sell it. There’s no way he’d believe me if I didn’t make it sound like I was on his side. You believe me, right?”

You do. If you believe in anything any more, you believe in Adam. But even so, it feels wrong, pitting an enemy against your friends – against his own daughter. You doubt Nyssa will approve of this. You doubt any of your friends will.

“Yeah, I know. It’s just...it doesn’t feel right.”

“Hey, if it makes you feel better, I don’t like it either. But if we don’t do this, things’ll get much worse. Pretty soon this’ll be over, and then we can get back to the real bad guy.”

Adam is right – desperate times, desperate measures. 

“C’mon, where the hell are they?” Adam asks, turning away from you and looking around as if Daron is going to appear out of nowhere and solve all your problems.

There’s a commotion outside, and a group of Sagitari rush past, weapons drawn and ready to fire, muttering something about Rao’s chambers. You feel as if you’re missing something extremely important right now, but you don’t know what it is. And you have a feeling that when you do find out, it’ll be far too late.

“Well, that can’t be good,” Adam says, taking the cigarette from his mouth and motioning towards the doorway. You join him at the opening, ready to follow the Sagitari when a familiar voice echoes towards you.

Coming from the opposite direction to the guards is Ona, dressed in her white Word of Rao robe, writing across her face and a glassy look in her eyes as she chants under her breath.

“Through fire, we are reborn. Through fire, we are reborn. Through fire, we are reborn.”

“Ona?” Adam asks, reaching out towards her. “Ona, wait!” 

But she ignores both of you, hurrying away as fast as her tiny legs can carry her. 

“Ona?” you call, but she doesn’t look back.

“You think she’s traumatized or something?” Adam asks, and you hug yourself in dismay – you’d forgotten all about her in the commotion. You’d been too focused on Seg, and Adam, and Zod to remember the poor girl directly in the line of fire.

“I thought she was in the best place for her – when we found out about Brainiac’s sentry and the Voice, we should have taken her away from here, no matter what she wanted. Who knows what’s happened to her now?” 

Adam shakes his head. “This isn’t your fault. Kem and I, we found her earlier today – Kem tried to talk her into coming back to the tavern, away from all this, but she wouldn’t leave. And now...”

He gazes down the corridor in puzzlement as Ona turns a corner, disappearing from sight.

“Kem wanted to find Ona? He never told me that,” you begin to say, casting your mind back to earlier today. “But then, I suppose I didn’t really give him much of a chance. After my fight with Seg, I just left. I should have been there, I should have helped him.”

“Hey, no, don’t think like that. There’s nothing you could have done differently. No offense, but if she didn’t listen to Kem, I doubt she’d have listened to you.”

You can’t argue with that logic. But even so, there’s something off about what you just saw, something about Ona that doesn’t sit right. And then a horrible thought crosses your mind and you grip Adam’s upper arm so hard that he winces.

“Ow! What the hell?”

“Adam, what if..what if the Voice got to her? What if he’s infected her, like Brainiac infected him? We can’t let what happened to Rhom happen to Ona, we can’t. She’s just a kid!”

Adam looks back towards the Voice’s chambers, clearly in two minds. You should investigate, gather all the facts first, you know this. But you’re not thinking straight right now, and every fibre of your being is saying that you need to find Ona before something even more terrible happens to her.

“Alright, alright, let’s go. She’s only a squirt, she can’t have gotten far.”

“I know you think I’m crazy, but I just have this awful feeling….” you say as the pair of you head off down the corridor, away from the Sagitari.

“Hey, look. You trust me, I trust you. That’s how relationships work, right?”

He’s not wrong there. You nod and smile, keeping pace with him as you march. “Right.”

As you bob and weave through Kandor, which is still in disarray after the Voice’s proclamation, you begin to pick up chatter from passers-by. The Voice was attacked by...Black Zero? That doesn’t make any sense. Unless...Daron failed, and Seg and Zod launched their assault unimpeded?

You share a grave look with Adam, and redouble your efforts to find Ona. Every time you think you’ve caught up with her she pulls away, using her small size to her advantage so that you can never quite intercept her.

“I know where we are,” you say as you turn a corner through the Rankless sectors. “Kem’s is only a little way from here.”

“You think Ona’s changed her mind? She’s going back to Kem after all?”

“I hope that’s what she’s doing. But if what we’ve just heard is right, then...no, I don’t even want to think about it. We have to get back there, right now!”

If there was ever a time for one of your patented shortcuts through Kandor, now would be it. But the weight of the crowds and your already close proximity to the tavern mean that there’s nothing you can do but hurry through the streets as quickly as you can.

Kem’s tavern appears in the distance, and you point it out to Adam. Through the crowds, you manage to catch a glimpse of white and gold. Ona’s not that far ahead of you.

“Seg’s in that tavern. And Kem, and who knows who else. Come on, Adam!” You grab his hand and run, harder than you’ve ever run before. You don’t care who you barge, who you shove to the floor – you just have to get to that tavern in time to save your friends, because you know now, with a chilling certainty, that if you don’t get there in time you’re never going to see them again.

Time is something you don’t have. It’s slipping through your fingers, faster and faster, and you grip Adam even harder to compensate, as if holding him tighter can slow the flow of it around you both. 

You feel as if time is never on your side these days, always working against you, making things more difficult, forcing you to make tough decisions without being able to really think them through – and then, as you turn the final corner, time turns cruel.

You can see Ona ahead of you, Kem’s hands on her shoulders, and the words of Rao emblazoned across her face. They’re glowing a sickly red-orange, like the flames of Rao himself, and you know without a doubt that your feeling was right – you wish that it wasn’t, more than you’ve ever wished for anything before. 

Seg stands just beside Kem, and their looks of happiness at seeing Ona again are disintegrating into horror in devastating slow motion. 

Adam looks at Ona too, at the horrific scene unfolding in front of him, and then back at you.

The expression on his face will haunt you for the rest of your life. It’s not sad, or angry, or hurt. It’s just resigned. He knows what he has to do, and he doesn’t have time to rage about it, or shed a tear, or even apologise.

All he can do is give you one last smile, just a slight quirk of the mouth, as he pelts away from you at top speed into the tavern, shoving Seg away from Ona in the process.

You’re paralyzed, completely unable to move as he draws out the Zeta-Beam device and clicks the button. A prismatic field appears in the air, like glass materializing out of nowhere, encapsulating Adam and blocking Seg from Ona.

You move unbidden, and then you’re there too, pressed up against the field, banging on it in vain as Adam looks forlornly at Seg. 

This is Adam’s final apology. What better way to make amends than to save Seg’s life?

And then an explosion tears through Ona’s tiny body as the field winks out of existence, both effects crashing together and blasting you backwards.

You collide with the wall behind you, hard. Something at the base of your skull cracks, and darkness begins to creep around the edges of your vision as you desperately try to look up.

Ona is gone. The Voice Of Rao’s retaliatory strike has failed, but he has taken the life of an innocent in the process. You hear Kem’s wail of anguish, muffled, far away, as he realises what has happened.

You blink, and more of your sight fades. You can make out indistinct shapes around you, the blurred faces of Seg and Jayna as they kneel beside you, trying to see if you’re alright.

Neither of their faces is the one you most want to see. Neither of them bring you the comfort you most want, the comfort you need right now.

Dimly you’re aware of Seg saying your name, asking where it hurts, telling you that you’re going to be okay.

But you’re not. You’ll never be okay again. Because Adam is gone. He just sacrificed himself to save Seg, to save you, from Brainiac.

The last thought that fills your mind as unconsciousness finally claims you is that at least he got his wish; he wanted, more than anything, to be a hero, and now you will remember him forever as the greatest hero Krypton has ever seen.


	8. Strange Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x09 - Hope

Consciousness is illusive, slipping through your fingers each time you grasp for it like sand, draining away no matter what you do.

The world is spinning, and time is immaterial. All you know is pain. The back of your head throbs constantly, sending waves of agony tearing through you, all of your nerve endings aflame, and you feel as if you will burn up from the inside out if it doesn’t stop.

But the physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional barrage. Your mind’s eye never closes, and the last time you saw Adam plays on a loop. His last smile, his desperate flight to save Seg, the horrific sound of Ona’s tiny body exploding, and then back to the beginning, over and over, until your brain threatens to crack in two from the pressure.

Whenever you do return to the land of the living, however momentarily, a sea of faces greets you. Seg, devastation etched into every sharp line of his face. Lyta, not sure how she should feel; she never lingers for long. You even see Nyssa once or twice, a surprising amount of concern in her expression, and Jayna, a begrudging respect in hers.

The most vivid face of this jumbled time however, is Kem. You see him loom over you, a stuffed backpack over one shoulder and his mouth weighed down in a resigned frown. He whispers something, you can’t make out the exact words, but the sentiment is clear – he’s saying goodbye. Then he leans over and kisses your forehead, and that’s the last time you see him.

After a while you decide that consciousness is just too difficult, too far away, and it hurts too much to try to find it any more. You retreat into the darkness, away from the pain, the hurt, immersing yourself in the memory of Adam, fixating on his face in each replay of his death, a moment of pleasure blasted away by pain.

This isn’t healthy, you know. This isn’t what you should be doing. But he’s gone. There’s no reason left to fight. You can just give yourself to this, live forever in this memory, until the stars burn out and you meet again in death.

But something won’t let you rest. Something, no, someone keeps coming back to you, trying to pull you back again, make you face what happened. You try to push them away, but they’re insistent, never letting you rest for too long.

And the harder they try, the more persistent they are, the more the pain subsides. Your body aches less and less to inhabit, your mind stops playing that memory on a loop, giving you blessed darkness instead.

Finally, the pain lessens enough for you to return to your body entirely. You’re not sure if you’re going to stay, but your savior’s tenacity means that you have to at least try, to placate them if nothing else. 

Everything aches, especially the base of your neck. But it’s a dull pain, a manageable pain. You leave your eyes closed; you’re not sure if you’ll ever want to see a world that doesn’t have Adam Strange in it again.

You feel a pressure on one of your hands – someone has taken it, squeezing it tightly. It’s an unfamiliar hand; your heart leaps at the idea that it could be Adam, but crashes just as hard; there are no callouses on this person’s fingers.

“You can fight this. We need you,” says a voice. Unlike the hand, it’s familiar. You’d know it anywhere, even in a crowded room filled with shouting. “I need you. I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, and now you’re paying for it. There are so many things I need to tell you, so much I have to make up for. But I can’t do that while you’re asleep, so you’ve gotta wake up, okay? Wake up.”

The sheer despair in their voice tells you that this person is going through just as much pain as you, in their own way. Maybe, if you share your pain, you can help each other through this.

You force your eyes open, squinting as they adjust to the light for the first time in however long. You look at the person holding your hand, their gaze distant and disconnected, and choke back tears as you squeeze back.

“Seg.”

His eyes widen in shock, relief shaking the tension from his body as he looks up, throwing himself over you in a massive hug. 

“Seg. Ow.”

“Rao, I’m sorry, shit!” He pulls himself from you and drops to the floor at your side, as close as he can get without climbing on top of you. Now that you’re more aware, you realise that you are on a makeshift bed, rough sheets under your body and a pillow that’s almost flat beneath your head.

“I want to ask if you’re okay, but I...I don’t even know where to start. When you hit your head, we were all so worried, we didn’t know what to do. I was going to take you to the Fortress, get Val to take a look at you, but it was too dangerous to move you, and-”

“Seg. It’s okay. I get it. You did what you could. I’m...I’m not fine, but I will be.” You wince, pushing yourself upright in the bed. Seg reaches out to help, but you wave him away.

“How long have I been out?” you ask, glancing around the room.

“Three days,” Seg replies. “You’ve been in and out since...since Adam...”

The mention of his name makes you well up, your vision blurring as tears appear of their own accord. You wipe them away quickly with the back of your hand. 

“He’s gone, isn’t he? The explosion, Ona...oh Rao, Ona.” The loss of Adam is overwhelming, so huge and terrible that it has eclipsed everything else in your mind, but now you realise that he wasn’t the only one that died in that explosion. 

Ona, whose faith had brought her comfort in the darkest of times, whose faith had been manipulated into something awful by Brainiac. Ona, who had always been happy and hopeful, had been taken advantage of, turned into something so awful...and now she’s gone too. 

You feel horrendous that she’s gone – and even worse that it has taken you this long to realise. If you’d helped Kem find her, if you’d stopped him from sending her to the Voice in the first place…

But that’s a dark spiral you can’t afford to throw yourself down right now. You’ve already clawed your way back from one, losing yourself in further grief would do no one any good, least of all you. There would be time for that later.

Seg must see the hurt on your face, and attributes it to Adam. You don’t have it in you to correct him, especially once he starts explaining what happened after the bomb went off.

“There was...no sign of Adam. He turned on his Zeta-Beam thing, and then...the explosion, and then...nothing. He saved me, Kem; he gave his life for us, despite everything I said. I pushed him away, and he came back and rescued me when I needed him the most. I...I can’t believe he’s gone.”

Now it’s Seg’s turn to get upset. You reach out and pull him back towards you, fighting through the pain to embrace him. You rest your head on his back, which heaves underneath you. 

Being this close to Seg once would have destroyed you. Now, it’s just a hug between two of the closest friends, united in their grief, drawing support from each other.

“How’s Kem holding up?” you whisper into Seg’s back, when your eyes eventually dry up and your breathing returns to normal.

“Not great,” Seg admits, sitting back and running his hands over his face. “After Ona, it was like all the fight just left him, and he didn’t have much to begin with, if we’re being honest. He was just wrapped up in all this because he was unfortunate enough to be friends with me.”

“This isn’t your fault Seg. This is all on Brainiac – and we’re going to make him pay for it. Let me talk to Kem, I’ll make him see that. Now’s not the time for sadness – it’s time for action.”

Seg looks shifty, and rubs the back of his neck. “That’s going to be difficult; I sent him to Kryptonopolis, so that he’d be safe. I can’t keep involving him in all this, he’s already lost too much already. He’s gone. I’m sorry.”

You think back to your fevered dreaming, the sight of Kem with his backpack, the defeat on his face, and you sigh deeply. You understand. You’re not happy about it, but if this all goes wrong and you can’t stop Brainiac, at least he won’t be in the line of fire any longer.

“I...want you to go too,” Seg says suddenly. It’s not as forceful as you expected, as if he’s trying to convince himself as well as you, and he nods to himself in response to his own words. “You’ve lost too much too, I won’t let you lose anything else.”

“Don’t you think that’s up to me?” you ask softly. “I’m not going anywhere, Seg. Do you really think I’d abandon the fight after what Brainiac’s taken from me? I’m not leaving.”

“But-”

“This isn’t an argument. I’ve lost...I’ve lost Adam. Kem is out of reach. That means that the only other person I care about is still here in Kandor, and I’m not letting Brainiac take you away from me too.” You’re pleased to hear the conviction in your voice; it doesn’t waver at all.

Seg meanwhile looks surprised. “You still care about me? After what I said to Adam, after what I said to you? If I’d just listened to him, maybe he’d still be here right now. This is my fault, you shouldn’t even want to talk to me after everything.”

You roll your eyes. Even that hurts, but you don’t let on. “You’re my friend, Seg. You’re stubborn, and you’re stupid, but you’re not malicious. What you said was what you felt; I’m not holding any of that against you. We’ve been through too much for something like that to split us apart now.”

“But...Adam...”

“Adam trusted you, Seg. He did what he did because he knew that, no matter what, you had to live. Not just to save the timeline, but because you’re a good person. You deserve to live – and it’ll be up to you to keep Kandor on the right path once we stop all this.”

Seg smiles wryly. “I wish I had as much faith in myself as you and Adam do. Did. Rao, I don’t know any more.”

“I’ve got enough faith for all three of us, don’t you worry about that. Now, get me out of this bed and get me caught up on what’s been going on. I’ve been out of the fight for long enough.”

Seg looks like he’s about to protest, but you glare him down and he relents. With his help, you pull yourself up from the bed and manage to dress yourself in clean clothes. 

The longer you stand, the more you move around, the stronger you begin to feel. Your heart still aches, and probably will forever, but you’re filled with a renewed strength of mind as well as body, the safety and security of the darkness you’ve escaped no longer pulling at you. Your drive to stay alive is now far stronger that any temptation you may have had to lay down your metaphorical sword.

Brainiac has taken Adam from you and for that, he’s going to pay. You’re going to defeat him, Zod, Doomsday, and anyone else that gets in your way, because that’s what Adam would want you to do.

He may be gone, but his legacy will live forever with you. With Seg and the rest, you will save Kandor, and Krypton. And after that, you will find a way to ensure that Adam’s future comes to pass as well, whatever that takes.

Everything you do next will be in the name of Adam Strange.

*****

“I’m fine Seg, I can come. Let me help!” you say, trailing behind him like a lost child as he gets ready to leave the safehouse with Jayna.

It seems that Lyta and General Zod have disappeared, and there’s only one place they can be going – back to the Cythonnite tunnels in order to retrieve Doomsday. Of course, you can’t let that happen, but Seg isn’t as enthusiastic about you leaving as you are.

“You’ll only slow us down,” Jayna says. “You’d be better served staying here and resting.” It’s not meant as a put down, or a slight on your abilities, there’s no harshness to her words. She’s just stating a clear fact, and it’s her honesty that makes you stop.

Seg gives you a pleading look, and you resist the urge to stamp your foot in frustration. 

“Fine. Fine. But next time, I’m coming.”

“Next time we go to stop a time traveller and my girlfriend from unleashing a mutant monster into the city? Definitely.” Seg’s deadpan humour cracks your lips into a smile against your will, so you slap him on the arm as he passes.

“Just be careful, you two. Or you’ll answer to me.” You give them both a serious glare, and then wink. Seg grins, and even Jayna manages to look slightly less serious for a brief second. Then they’re gone, leaving you alone.

You look around the safehouse for something to occupy your mind, but it’s bare. After the explosion at Kem’s tavern, Seg had apparently moved you all here for safety, and to keep you close to the Rankless sectors so that you could keep an eye on the most vulnerable Kryptonians.

The attack on the Voice has failed, and now he, or what’s left of him, is apparently wandering the halls of Kandor, feasting on anyone he can get his hands on, draining the energy directly from their bodies and leaving behind lifeless husks. The thought of it sends a shiver down your spine.

But the idea that the Voice could be vulnerable fills you with hope; maybe there’s a chance that you can stop him, and in turn stop Brainiac, without any further bloodshed. Instead though, you’re stuck here recuperating, left alone with your grief. You sink into a chair covered in deflated cushions and close your eyes, trying to clear your head of all thoughts.

Your mind of course turns to Adam, but you can’t bear that right now. You push away the image of his face and instead focus on nothing, nothing at all. Seg was right in one respect – you did need to rest, but not your body; your mind, and your emotions, have been run ragged, and they could do with a rest.

The strength you had shown when Seg had tried to send you away wasn’t a lie; you truly believe in avenging Adam, in honouring his memory, but it’s hard to hold onto that strength all the time. It’s like working a muscle – you can’t do it constantly, or it’ll break your arm. Only in this case, it’d be your heart that snaps.

“Credit for your thoughts?” says a voice, and you turn to see Nyssa push back the cloth blocking the door and enter. She looks genuinely concerned, though you’re not sure if it’s for you or if it’s just the only expression she has in the current crisis, and she sinks into a chair opposite you.

“If you’re looking for Seg, you just missed him. He and Jayna need to deal with another problem before it destroys the city.”

“We seem to have a lot of those recently,” Nyssa says, oozing easy sarcasm.

“Tell me about it.”

“I’d rather talk about you, if you don’t mind. You look like you need to talk.” She cocks her head at you, catlike, and nods at you to begin.

“I really don’t-” you start to say, but Nyssa narrows her eyes. She’s a woman used to getting what she wants, and you’re in no position to argue with her right now.

“Okay, okay,” you raise your hands in defeat. “Fine. Fine.”

You don’t even know where to begin, so you go right back to the beginning, when you met Adam for the first time. You think it’ll be difficult to relate your problems to Nyssa, who is basically a complete stranger, but it’s actually easier than speaking to someone you know well. As soon as you start, you can’t stop.

You tell her of how the two of you met, how you were thrust together by the fight against Brainiac, and how you drew ever closer to the man from outer space as the battle continued.

You tell her of how you’d stood by Adam, even when his lies were revealed, how you’d struggled to deal with his deception, and how you’d ultimately forgiven him, right before you’d made love for the first time. You tell her about some of that; but most of those details are for you and Adam alone.

Then, the only time your voice hitches, you tell her about Adam’s sacrifice, how he died to save Seg and Kem from the Voice’s revenge. And how you feel now, both full of sorrow and full of rage, and how you are determined to see this all through to its conclusion, whatever that may be.

Throughout it all she remains almost silent, probing for a few details here and there (although not about your night with Adam, as much as you can see from her face that she wants to). When you’re done, you sit back into the chair, ready to consign yourself back to sleep.

“You’ve had it rougher than most,” she says simply. “A lesser Kryptonian might have crumbled under all that pressure. But not you. You rose to the challenge at every turn. You managed to find love, real love, in a time where you’d have been forgiven for running and hiding as far away as possible. I was right, what I said before. You’re not one to be underestimated.”

“Compliments aren’t going to make me feel better,” you tell her plainly. She actually chuckles.

“That wasn’t my intention, actually. At the risk of sounding like a storybook villain, we’re more alike than you’d think.”

“Did you fall in love with an alien from another planet who then up and died right when you needed him the most?” you hiss, sounding far more distressed than you’d intended. Nyssa doesn’t comment on your tone, only your words.

“No, but I’ve had my share of hardship. I take it you’ve met my father, Daron?”

What follows is a terrible recounting of Nyssa’s childhood, groomed from birth to follow in her father’s footsteps, to help him wrap Kandor around his little finger, and take power all for himself.

And then, when it all seemed to be going wrong, he’d betrayed her, even tried to have her killed, all in the name of seeking even more power. It seems the people you love have both let you down in the past, in terrible ways.

But you and Adam had found your way back to each other. Nyssa and her father were very unlikely to reconcile after what he had done.

“I’m sorry,” you say when she finishes. “I know it doesn’t mean much coming from me, but I’m sorry you had to go through that. I don’t think...no, I know I couldn’t have. To have someone put you under so much pressure for so long, only to throw you away at the first chance they got...that must be awful.”

Nyssa smiles grimly. “What my father didn’t realise is that by working me as hard as he did, he made me into the person I am today. I have the skills I have, I’m as capable as I am, because my father made me this way. And now I’m going to use my skills to do what he couldn’t – I’m going to save Kandor from itself, and from that alien thing he pledged allegiance to over me.”

Her determination is similar to your own too. You both have goals in mind, and strong motivation to get you there. Nyssa was right – you’re more alike than you’d have thought.

“If you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here. I know you probably don’t think much of me, but-”

“You’d be surprised, actually. I admire you, I think. For what you’ve done, for how loyal you are to your friends. You have qualities I wish I had myself.”

“Well then.” You reach over and hold out your hand to Nyssa, and she looks at it as if you’ve offered her some peculiar food, possibly with tentacles. 

“We’re friends now, Nyssa-Vex. Whether you like it or not. So shake.”

She snorts, but smiles and complies. Her hands are long and slender; no callouses on her hands either. 

“Friends. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a friend before.” She says the word like it’s foreign to her; and as a politician, it’s likely it is. She’s never had friends, just people she could manipulate into doing what she needed them to do.

“Well, you do now.” Your words are firm; there’s no getting out of this one.

Nyssa’s tone changes then, becoming light and airy. “Does this mean we can talk about boys and girls and have sleepovers, and do each other’s hair?” 

It takes you a second to register what she’s said, completely taken aback, and then you laugh. “Now you’re just mocking me.”

“...I might be,” she replies with a smirk. “But seriously, can I talk to you about Seg?”

“Rao, I’m far too tired for this. Look, if we stop Brainiac and save the planet, then I promise, we can talk about Seg until the sun burns out.”

“I’m holding you to that,” she says, and you can tell that she’s made a mental note in her internal notepad – you’ve entered into an unbreakable contract in her mind. Maybe you should be more careful with your words.

But for now you just lean back in the chair, drained from your conversations, from expressing all of your pent up emotions, from listening to Nyssa’s own terrible story, and all you want to do is sleep.

You slip away easily, the idea of a new friend, even one as damaged and broken as Nyssa, easing you off to sleep. You could do with some more friends these days, and times like this are going to be few and far between unless you manage to stop Brainiac. And for that, you’re going to need to be well-rested.

*****

This fight has been difficult enough up until this point, and you’re under no illusions that it’s going to get any easier. But you had thought that you could rely on a few people to have your back through it all. Seg, of course. Kem, but he’s out of reach. Adam, obviously, but...that wasn’t going to happen right now. Even Nyssa seemed to be on your side. So the last person you expected to betray you was Lyta.

And yet, here you are.

Lyta and Zod have attempted to steal Doomsday, only to be thwarted by Seg. Seg, in turn, has then been betrayed by the Cythonnites, who have hidden Doomsday somewhere in Kandor, the seal on its containment chamber slowly breaking so that, when Brainiac takes Kandor, the beast will wreck havoc through his ship and destroy him as well.

So now Lyta, Zod, and Jayna are missing, and the rest of you are in the Fortress, attempting to regroup for one final assault before all hope is lost entirely. 

Seg and Nyssa plan on recruiting as many of Black Zero and the Kandorians that they can in order to unleash a desperate attack and take down the Voice of Rao before he can summon Brainiac’s mothership to Krypton. It’s a desperate gambit, but it’s all you have left.

Seg leans over one of the railings surrounding the main dais of the Fortress, hands crossed, eyes staring off into the distance. His heart is heavy, weighing down the rest of him; the tension in his shoulders tells you as much. You lean over next to him, nudging him lightly with your shoulder.

“Cheer up. It’s not the end of the world.” You’re completely deadpan, and when Seg turns towards you in disbelief he can’t stop himself laughing.

“Okay, well done,” he compliments, and you take a small bow. “You seem to be feeling better.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” you admit. “But I don’t have time to feel like I want to feel. I can feel all my aches and pains when Brainiac isn’t hours away. Or when I’m dead, but I’d rather the former. So, what’re we going to do now?”

“Honestly? I’m about one setback away from giving up and letting Brainiac do whatever the hell he wants,” Seg says, but you know that’s only frustration talking. He’ll never give up, not until he’s dead, and probably not even then.

“If Adam were here, he’d say something like ‘Superman would never give up, and neither should you’,” you say, in a surprisingly decent imitation of Adam’s voice. Seg smiles sadly, the smile not quite reaching beyond his lips.

“If I’d listened to him, he might be. If I’d listened, if I’d paid attention to what you wanted to say, he’d still be...”

You nudge Seg again, more forcefully this time.

“Hey, none of that. You did what you thought was right, and you wouldn’t be Seg if you hadn’t. Adam wouldn’t blame you – he gave his life to save you, he thought the world of you. Probably more than one world. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you, either, come to think of it.

“Could you have done something differently? Probably. But we all could have. There were a million decisions that lead to Adam’s...sacrifice,” you say. ‘Death’ still isn’t a word you can bring yourself to say out loud, as if doing so will speak it into existence, and then the wall you’ve built around the emotions you feel will crumble and you’ll be totally useless to everyone as you drown in them.

“We can still do this, Seg. I know it looks hopeless, even more hopeless than it has up until this point. But Adam wouldn’t give up. And neither can we. Even if we can’t win, we have to try. For his sake, if not our own. He gave everything to give us this chance, and we owe it to him not to give up hope.”

Seg looks at you with a newfound admiration, taken aback by your wise words.

“I…I’m sorry I took him away from you,” he stammers, but you shake your head.

“It’s not your fault, end of story. I don’t blame you, and that’s the end of it.”

He changes track with a nod of understanding.

“Right, sure, okay.” He leaves the railing and pulls a crate out from under a table, rummaging around for something. 

“In that case, there’s something else I need to do for you. It’s still sort of an apology, but it’s a bit more than that. I want to show you what your friendship means to me, what it’s meant to have you around, these last few weeks especially, but really for my entire life. I’m not sure how I would have survived being Rankless for so long without you and Kem.”

“Seg, you don’t have to-” you begin to say, one hand outstretched to stop him from doing whatever it is that he’s doing, but he fills it with a small blue box instead, and then nods solemnly.

“What is this?”

“Just open it, and I’ll explain.”

You raise an eyebrow, but do as he asks. Inside the box, nestled in silky blue fabric, is a sunstone, like the one Adam gave Seg weeks ago, the one that activated the Fortress in the first place.

You gingerly take it from the box, turning it around in your hands. 

“Seg, what’s this for?”

“Look at the end.”

You turn the stone obediently, so that the top of the shaft catches the light. It’s the symbol of the House Of El, the symbol on the back of Superman’s cape.

“Val was telling me that the El symbol isn’t just for the House. It’s from old Kryptonian; it means hope. And I can’t think of anyone who inspires as much hope as you do.”

You look at him in confusion, the sunstone loose between your fingers, unsure of what he’s getting at.

“It won’t mean anything official, at least not if I don’t get the House reinstated, but I’d like to make you an honorary El. You’re the embodiment of everything our House stands for – even in the face of everything you’ve lost, everything we still stand to lose, you’re saying that we can win. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of being an El than you. I’d be proud to welcome you into our House.”

Your face is wet; you don’t remember starting to cry. Like Seg said, it’s entirely symbolic at this point, but it means more than you can possibly say. To belong to something bigger than yourself, to have someone you can call your brother, someone you care as much about as Seg...it’s overwhelmingly generous, and you collapse into an embrace with him, the sunstone now gripped tightly in your hand.

“Seg, you’re mad. Completely stark raving bonkers. But I accept. I’d be honoured.”

“The honour is all mine,” he says simply, and then you’re crying all over again. They’re happy tears, the first you’ve cried in...forever, it feels like.

“Now, we have a battle to win. Are you ready for this?” Seg doesn’t even suggest you stay behind this time, as well he shouldn’t. There’s no way you’d let him do this without you.

You wipe your eyes, smile once more as you tuck the sunstone into your pocket, and then you’re back to business.

“Let’s do this.”

Seg says nothing else, and heads back towards the skimmer parked outside the Fortress. You go to follow, until you notice Val’s hologram appear off to one the side. He motions to you conspiratorially, and you change course to intercept him.

“Are you coming?” Seg suddenly shouts from outside, calling out your new name. You’re never going to get used to hearing it with “El” at the end, but in all honesty, you never want to. You never want to take what Seg has done for you for granted.

“Get the skimmer going, I’ll be out soon!” you shout back, heading towards Val.

“Is everything okay?” He gives you a sad smile of his own, the bristles in his beard drooping towards the floor and exaggerating his expression.

“I should be asking you that, really,” he says. “I’m so sorry about Adam, I truly am. He was a nuisance, but he was a good man.”

“Thank you,” you say. You really want to give the old man a hug, but you know that there’s no point in embarrassing yourself.

“I heard what Seg said, as well. Welcome to the family. I’m glad to have you.” It was hard enough hearing it from Seg, but hearing the great Val-El welcome you with open arms is almost enough to set you off crying again.

“I’ll do my best to uphold the values of the House Of El,” you say formally, but Val just shakes his head.

“I have no doubt of that; you’ve done that ever since I met you, I have no worries about that changing now. Before you go, I do have something to tell you, though. Something from Adam.”

Your heart stops. Your breath catches in your throat. Val takes your silence as a prompt to continue.

“He left something with me, something for you. He said to give it to you in your time of greatest need, when all hope seems lost. I thought you might like it now, before you go off to fight.”

You consider it for a moment. If it’s some kind of weapon, then you’d be happy to have it. But this is Adam you’re talking about. The chances of him having a secret weapon and not using it the first chance he got are slim to none. So whatever it is, it can wait.

You shake your head at Val. 

“Keep it for me, for now. You said when all hope is lost, right? Well, I don’t think it is. Not just yet. So save it, and I’ll come and see you again once this is all over. Okay?”

Val inclines his head in understanding, and then steps back to allow you to leave. You pass him with a quick wave; you can’t handle any more goodbyes at the moment.

As you pass, he speaks once again, quietly under his breath so that you can only hear him because you’re so close.

“He also wanted me to tell you how much he loved you, in case he wasn’t around to tell you himself.”

You freeze again, smiling involuntarily. Even beyond the veil, Adam is looking out for you, sending you reminders of his affection.

Your love for him somehow manages to grow even greater, and your resolve strengthens even more; it’s going to be nigh on unbreakable at this rate. Brainiac better watch out - you’re coming for him.

*****

You’ve felt powerless before; unable to act, unable to influence the events unfolding around you. It’s becoming an uncomfortably familiar feeling at this point; no matter how much you’ve raged against your circumstances over the past few weeks, there’s only been so much you’ve been able to do to influence them, however hard you’ve tried.

But standing here in the generator room for the dome that protects Kandor City, pulse rifle in hand and aimed at the back of Seg’s head, all of your previous feelings of inadequacy and paralysis pale in comparison.

What remains of the Voice Of Rao stands before you, glowering triumphantly at the assembled Black Zero and Kandorian forces that have arrived to oppose him. 

The attack had fallen apart from the moment your forces set foot in the room. The Voice’s influence was irresistable, and now your small army’s weapons have all been turned against each other, and it’s only a matter of time before the creature forces them to fire on each other, andforces you to execute your best friend.

Around you, the Kandorians and Black Zero operatives shake in fear. You’re not sure how many are under the Voice’s direct control like you and how many are simply acting as a result of that fear. Not that it matters; once that first rifle fires, it’s all going to be over.

Seg, thankfully, hasn’t noticed your weapon pointed at him. He’s too fixated on the Voice, on trying to diffuse the situation in front of you, to realise that he is in imminent danger from the person he trusts the most in the room.

“Such weak minds. Polluted by fear and hatred. So easily manipulated.” The Voice’s words are distorted by Brainiac’s increased presence in his body, strangely mechanical inflections coming from an all too Kryptonian mouth. It’s one of the worst sounds you’ve ever head.

“Go on. You know you want to.” You’ve never heard anyone speak so persuasively, and you’ve never vehemently opposed something so strongly. But what you want doesn’t matter any more – you are at the mercy of Brainiac’s will.

It’s going to happen. Any second now, the Voice’s influence is going to make you fire, make you shoot Seg, make you a murderer, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

The room slows to a crawl as adrenaline floods your system. It’s futile, since you can’t move, and it just makes every second more agonizing to watch. You see the trigger finger of one of the Kandorians moving ever so slowly backwards.

“Hey. Come on now, you’re better than this. You’re better than him. You really gonna let him win?”

Somehow, miraculously, you know that voice. You never thought you’d hear it again, and yet here it is, music to your ears. You still can’t move, not even your head, can’t even speak to acknowledge that you can hear him, but the owner of the voice obliges instead by walking into your field of vision.

Adam Strange, larger than life, the most welcome sight you’ve ever seen.

“Did you really come all this way to shoot Seg in the back of the head?” Adam asks, making a joke out of your impending fratricide. “I know he can be a stubborn ass, but come on.”

He reaches over and puts his hands around the pulse rifle, trying to take it away from you or change your target, but it’s stuck fast, held securely in your unmoving arms.

“Guess not,” he shrugs, and sticks his hands back in his pockets. “The only person who can stop this is you.”

I can’t, you want to say. I can’t do this without you, none of this. Why did you have to have your heroic sacrifice? Why did you have to die and leave me all alone?

“You’re strong. You’re brave. Hell, you’re an El now, aren’t you? You can’t have your first act as an El be killing the only other one still alive, right?”

How he knows about that, you don’t know. Is he listening from beyond the veil, spying on you from wherever you go when you die? Or is he really just a hallucination, formed from your own memories in order to make this awful situation a little easier? Have you finally cracked?

“You can do this. It’s corny, but I believe in you. And besides, I need you to get through all this alive. I need you to come find me.”

Adam’s words startle you even more than seeing him has. Find him? But he’s dead...isn’t he?

He smiles knowingly, as if he can read your thoughts. “I know it’s confusing. You’ll know what to do when the time comes. Get through this, and I’ll see you again soon. Trust me.”

He says nothing more, doesn’t elaborate on his cryptic messages, just kisses you lightly on the cheek and then vanishes behind you, out of sight, out of mind again.

Time begins to seep back into the room, that Kandorian’s finger pulling even further towards the trigger.

Adam’s right; this isn’t how this is supposed to end. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen today. Are you going to stand here, passive and unassuming, letting the world dictate what you do like it has for so many years? 

Brainiac isn’t allowed to win. Not after all this. You’ve all gone through too much to give up now, not when you’re so close. You deny him with all of your strength, physical, mental, emotional. You wrap your mind in steel and scream with every fibre of your being.

You can do this. You will do this. You will not let Brainiac win! For Seg. For Kem. For Nyssa, and Ona, and Rhom. Hell, even for Lyta. Especially for Adam. And most of all, for yourself.

No, says the voice inside your head, filled with indignant rage.

No, says the voice inside your heart, thudding out a rhythm like a battle drum.

“No!” shouts the voice from your lips, channelling all the pain, the hatred, the sorrow, the rage into one undeniable act of resistance.

The Kandorian fires, and instantly the room is alight with blaster pulses. Your own finger twitches towards the trigger, closer and closer...

And at the last possible moment you wrench your rifle sideways, firing into the wall instead of Seg’s head. You drop the gun as if it’s on fire as Seg topples backwards, trying to dodge the flying pulse blasts around him and landing unharmed at your feet.

In seconds, everyone in the room is dead except the two of you and the Voice, who floats across the room towards you like an ethereal being, like a god of death coming to collect your souls.

As he comes closer, you feel yourself freeze up again. This time the entire force of his power is upon you and you know that, even if you hadn’t already used up most of your strength fighting him off once, you have no chance of resisting him now. Thankfully your weapon is too far away – if he’s going to kill you, he won’t make you take anyone else down with you.

His eyes are dark and sinister, truly otherworldly, while the back of his head is pitted and scarred; whether from the failed assassinations or from being infested with Brainiac’s technology, you can’t tell. There’s an intelligence in him that seems to perceive you on more than just the physical level, like he can see right down to the very core of what makes you you. It makes your soul crawl, as well as your skin.

“Interesting; you managed to overcome my control, however minutely. It takes an unfathomable amount of power to do something like that. A twelfth level intellect such as mine should be irresistible to one such as you. Tell me, before you die – how did you manage it?”

His curiosity is genuine. His tone belies no malice or taunting, he’s not trying to make a fool of you. He just wants knowledge, and he doesn’t care what he has to do to get it. That kind of insatiable need is what has made him what he is today – unfeeling, unethical, cold.

You regain the use of your vocal chords; the Voice has allowed you to speak, so that you can answer his question. You resist the urge to spit in his face.

“Love,” you say simply. “Love is stronger than you’ll ever be. And no amount of knowledge, study, or cities stolen from planets against their will can teach you that.”

The Voice tilts his head to one side, curious, and taps his chin thoughtfully.

“Love. Not quantifiable, in any sense. Not observable in action. Insignificant, in the pursuit of knowledge. And yet...you may be an anomaly that warrants further study.” He flicks his hand. Your body throws itself against the wall of the chamber and you land with a crash, pain flaring across your already ravaged body. The Voice splits his focus then, forcing you to the floor while he turns his attention to Seg.

You’re trapped, unable to move, barely even able to think between the pain and the Voice’s influence, as he threatens to drop Seg over the edge of the tower to a quick and painful death below.

You want nothing more than to pull yourself to your feet, to reach out and grab the pulse rifle just tantalizingly out of reach and blast the foul creature in the face, but you can’t – this time you’re completely powerless, and all you can do is watch in silence, a mental scream blaring through your mind since you can’t release it through your mouth.

Thankfully, someone else is able to save the day. Nyssa darts past you, plunging Seg’s sunstone into the back of the Voice’s head just at the right time. He begins to flake away, disintegrating before your very eyes piece by piece as Seg lands back safely on the ground.

With the Voice’s attention elsewhere, you manage to clamber to your feet just as his body finally explodes, showering Nyssa and Seg with pieces of Brainiac tech and body parts.

You’re about to call out to them, but stop as they lock lips. You avert your eyes, feeling as if you’re intruding on this private moment, even if it’s not really the best time for this. Then again, you’ve won, right? So surely now’s the best time for it?

As soon as the positive thought enters your mind though, the beam of energy just beyond the edge of the tower flares, and the dome that protects Kandor from the outside world slowly begins to rescind, leaving the city vulnerable to the elements for the first time since its creation.

As you watch through the gap between Nyssa and Seg, a creeping dread grips you, and movement out of the corner of your eye draws your gaze.

In the centre of the room, something is constructing itself. Organic tendrils are forming from nothing, coalescing into a vaguely humanoid shape. There’s no rational reason for you to reach the conclusion, but somehow you know deep in your hear that it can be only one thing.

“Uh, guys? We have to go!” you shout, and both Nyssa and Seg whirl on you. One look at the creature growing in the centre of the room is all they too need to realise that the battle is not yet won.

Seg grabs the sunstone from the floor, and the three of you flee the control room as quickly as you can.

You thought it was over. You thought you’d won. But really, you’ve done nothing. You’ve lost all of your support from the population of Kandor. You’ve lost Lyta, and Kem. You’ve lost Adam.

And now the dome is down, Brainiac’s ship is no doubt on its way here, and the monster himself is loose within your city, ready to claim your home for his insipid collection.

You run; it’s all you know how to do right now, run as fast and as far from Brainiac as you can. But it’s not going to be forever; this is a tactical retreat, not fleeing in terror, you say to yourself, despite all appearances to the contrary. 

You’re not letting him win. You’re going to kick him out of your city, before he even has time to take in the decor. You’re going to win this fight, and put all of the threats against your world out of action.

You’re going to fulfil your promise to Adam; you’ll save your world, and his, even if it kills you.


	9. Strange Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set during the events of Krypton 01x10 - The Phantom Zone

Your life has been pure insanity since...well, since Adam Strange skidded his way into Kem’s tavern, if you’re being completely honest. But standing here, in the presence of the real flesh and blood Val-El, who you thought had been dead for fifteen years, is probably the most insane event you’ve been part of so far; and that includes facing not one but two time travellers, an alien super-intelligence, and a monstrous killing machine covered in spikes.

It’s a testament to Val’s hologram technology that you can’t even tell the difference between the authentic Kryptonian Val and the incorporeal one that you’ve been speaking to for the last few weeks. As the hologram winks out of existence you’re left with a lingering sense of sadness, as if you’ve lost yet another friend.

It’s probably even more surreal for Seg though, seeing his grandfather back from the dead. You can’t even begin to fathom how something like that would make you feel.

Since you’re technically an El now too, what does that make Val to you? Would he even want you as part of the House? Will Seg change his mind, now that he has another flesh and blood relative?

Not that you really have time to process any of this new information; Val has just revealed that in all of his travels through the Phantom Zone, peering into the past, present, and future, there’s only one constant that he’s managed to ascertain: no matter what you and your friends do, there is no way to stop Brainiac.

You’ve heard that thought voiced aloud more than once from those around you. You yourself have thought it at numerous times during the war of attrition against his previously unseen presence. But hearing it from Val, the certainty in his voice affects you in a way that the thought has never been able to before.

The despair crushes you like a physical weight, driving you to the floor. You collapse onto the step around the main dais of the Fortress, the sounds of Seg, Val, and General Zod arguing around you fading into the background as you recede into your own mind instead.

Everything you’ve done thus far has been futile. No matter what you do next, nothing is going to matter. You’re going to lose. Kandor will be taken, Krypton will explode, and everyone, including you, is going to die. It’s all been for nothing.

Adam gave his life for nothing.

You cast your mind around for something new, some angle that you haven’t approached this problem from before; but if Val has had an almost omnipotent view of Krypton’s history, the chance of you thinking of something he hasn’t already thought of is next to none. The depth of the problem sucks you in like a whirlpool, and you feel your last vestiges of hope dwindling in the darkness.

There’s a small, almost imperceptible part of you that welcomes the idea of failure, of giving up and finally letting Brainiac win. You’ve fought so hard these last few weeks, trying to stop problem after problem, managing to fight fires but never put out the biggest blaze. Wouldn’t it be nice just to stop fighting?

And if you’re going to die, that small part of you reasons, then it won’t be much longer before you’re reunited with the one you love. Adam will be there with open arms, ready to receive you at the end of your journey.

But, says the rest of your mind, would you be able to look him in the eye? Would you be able to say to him that you did your best, that you did everything you could, and that you died a heroic death, just like he did? 

No, you realise. No, if you gave up now, you wouldn’t be able to do that. And an eternity of Adam being disappointed in you would be more punishment than being trapped forever in one of Brainiac’s immoveable bottle cities.

At some point you’ve put your head in your hands, and you sit back up straight now, rubbing your eyes, trying to massage some motivation back into yourself. You look around at your assembled allies, wondering how they’re coping with Val’s revelation.

Seg, Zod, and Val are still embroiled in a heated argument using raised voices that would put the Kandorian Council to shame. Off to one side, Nyssa and Lyta are deep in their own hushed conversation; you’re not sure whether to be wary of that or not. Lyta has certainly fallen into the ‘not sure if you can trust her’ category after her stunt with Zod and Doomsday.

As you gaze around the room, something catches your eye – Superman’s cape is still hung up in the corner, its red and yellow fabric now so much a part of the background of the room that you barely even notice it any more. But something about it draws your attention now, makes you sit up and look at it again.

It’s only small, nothing compared to what it was before, but it’s still there, still hanging on by literal threads. You’d thought there was no chance left, no possible way to stop the immutable march of the inevitable future. But the cape is still there.

If all hope really is lost, if the future really isn’t salvageable any longer, then it should have disappeared entirely, shouldn’t it? And if any part of the cape still exists, then there’s still a chance that you can win, no matter how hopeless it appears to be.

That idea pushes you back to your feet; there’s still something that you and your friends can do to save everything; you just need to work out what it is.

Adam would have to wait for a while longer – it seems that there’s still some fight left to be fought after all.

First things first, you need to convince your friends that you’re right. To that end, you cross the room intent on barging your way into Seg and Zod’s argument.

But when you look back, the room is oddly empty. Only Val remains, looking concerned and wearier than you’ve ever seen him, or the hologram version of him at least, look before.

“Val? Where did everyone go?” you ask, not sure if you’re on first name terms with the man just yet.

Val smiles sadly and points out towards the Outlands. 

“Gone, I’m afraid. Lyta-Zod and Nyssa-Vex have gone back to Kandor, and both Seg and General Zod are in hot pursuit. They didn’t even stop to say goodbye.”

You’ve spent so long wrapped up in your own dark thoughts that your friends have managed to disappear right out from under your nose.

“I’m going after them,” you say, turning on your heel and heading for the entryway to the Fortress. Val calls out to stop you, but his words fall on deaf ears.

There’s something else that you can do, there has to be. But whatever it is, you’re going to need Seg and your friends to pull it off, and if they’re wandering right into Brainiac’s trap then they’re all about to get themselves captured or killed.

You’ve lost enough people recently. Rao be damned if you’re losing anyone else.

*****

Seg and Zod have a bigger head start than you’d anticipated. You run the entire length of the Cythonnite passageway from the Fortress to the city and see no sign of them, only their soggy footprints slowly drying on the floor. You don’t even get a glimpse of them until you’re back in Kandor proper, bursting into the central square of one of the Rankless sectors.

Your lungs are burning, your feet are sore, but you push all of the pain away. It’s not useful right now; you can feel it all later, once you survive this.

The city is seething around you, Rankless running as quickly as they can to try and evacuate. You can hardly blame them; the Guilds have deserted them, and the Sagitari forces are useless against Brainiac’s ship.

Only you and your friends know the true extent of the threat facing Krypton, and you’re all scattered to the winds now. It’s up to you to reunite them before time really does run out.

The sight of Brainiac’s ship far above you sends a chill down your spine. It’s as cold and unfeeling as the creature himself, a dark face blotting out the sky and glaring down at you as your already limited time slips even further away.

You wrench your eyes from the haunting view and run across the square, just in time to see Seg push himself back to his feet and bellow at Zod, voice so loud that it pierces even the cacophony of the Rankless around you.

“If Brainiac gets hold of Val, imagine what he could do with that information! Imagine how many more worlds he could conquer! The entire universe will pay the price for this!” 

If that’s what Zod is suggesting, then he’s even more insane than Adam ever thought he was. Giving Val to Brainiac won’t solve anything, it’ll just exacerbate an already impossible situation.

Zod seems to have other ideas though. “If he spares Krypton, so be it,” he says with finality, like the last bell of a funeral march. 

“There’s another way. There has to be,” you shout before either of them can say anything further. Both of them look shocked to see you here, but you don’t have time to explain. You think back to the Fortress, to the cape, waving forlornly like a last goodbye.

“If Superman’s cape is still intact, then there’s still a chance. It’s not hopeless yet. We just need to keep thinking! This isn’t the way!”

“That piece of cloth shows us nothing. A child’s security blanket, nothing more,” Zod scoffs.

“That’s not true!” you shout with reckless abandon. There are no doubt hundreds of ways for him to kill you with his bare hands, but you can’t bring yourself to care right now. You have to get him to reconsider, get them both to stop. There’s no time, no time at all! 

“How do you explain what’s happening to it? Everything we do now has an effect on the future, and whatever it is that we’ve done so far, it hasn’t completely removed Superman’s cape from history. The future’s just barely holding on, but it is still there.”

“Temporal decay,” Zod says simply. “Artefacts from elsewhere in the timeline fall apart when away from their points of origin for too long.”

“You’re making that up,” you protest, “that’s not a real thing!” You can tell he’s lying through his teeth, relying on your relative simplicity compared to his future knowledge to convince you of his lies, but you’re not having any of it.

“I’m not standing here listening to this when I have a clear plan that will save us all. Out of my way!”

Zod shoves past you both and heads for the dome generator tower; that’s where Brainiac was seen last, so it’s a good place to start searching for him. You’re about to go after him when Seg sticks out his arm and stops you.

“Let him go. It’ll all be alright.” He doesn’t look concerned, which surprises you. In fact, he looks determined, as if this is exactly what he wanted to happen.

“But, Seg-”

“Do you trust me?”

For the second time in one conversation, you’re taken aback. “What? Of course I do, how can you ask me that?”

“Then I need you to go back to the Fortress. Zod thinks he’s got the upper hand, but I think we can use him to our advantage.”

“...How?” you ask, intrigue now outweighing surprise.

Seg just smiles mysteriously. “I have a really, really bad plan.”

Cold fingers wrap themselves around your heart, like the spirit of death reminding you of what it has already taken from you. The last time you heard those words, it ended with Adam…

But that won’t happen twice, you think. There’s no way fate would be that cruel; you’ve endured enough, it won’t make you suffer that again. 

When Seg explains his plan, how he needs you and Val to reconfigure the Phantom Zone projector and the hologram inducer in order to make it work, you can’t see anything that can go wrong.

The plan relies entirely on Zod’s hubris, and Brainiac’s over-confidence. If there are two things that you can count on in the universe, it’s most definitely those.

“Be careful, Seg. Find Lyta and Nyssa and then get back as soon as you can. I’ll make sure everything’s ready for when you get back, I swear it on the House of El.”

“You’re going to do that every chance you get, aren’t you?” he replies with a smile.

“You know it.”

“Alright, good luck. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

You grasp Seg by the forearm, and then pull him in for a hug.

“Be careful...brother.”

“You know it,” he mirrors. You clap him on the back and then the embrace is broken. You move off to your respective tasks, both now having essential parts to play in Brainiac’s downfall.

You cast one final look back over your shoulder at Seg’s retreating form, silently hoping that he comes back alive, that you can pull this off, that this isn’t the last time you’ll see each other.

And then you’re off and running again, back the way you came, all the way to the Fortress despite the protest of your lungs, your feet, your entire body. If you had the time, you’d go and steal another skimmer, but there’s no chance of that with the city in disarray; the ports will be teeming with people, and you’d waste valuable time. 

When you finally arrive back at the Fortress, breathing harder than you’ve ever done before, doubled over with pain and exhaustion, you think you’re going to collapse.

Val appears at your side, but you wave him away; there’s no time to explain anything except Seg’s plan, which you force out between agonizing breaths.

You set to work then, shoulder to shoulder with Val, working quickly and in almost total silence, entirely focused on the job at hand. If you do speak, it’s to exchange updates or to ask for tools – there’s no time for idle chatter, because once Zod and Brainiac arrive, everything has to be perfect.

Superman’s cape flaps around behind you, offering you silent support as you work. Each time you look over at it, more seems to have unravelled; as if you needed any more reasons to hurry. 

So now it’s a race to see which you’ll run out of first; time, or hope? Because if your reserves of either run dry, all will be lost. 

If the House of El has taught you anything, it’s that you need to hold on to your hope, no matter what happens. So all you can do is hope that, for once, time will be on your side.

*****

This can’t be happening. Not again. Never again.

You dart forward, wrapping your hands around Seg’s outstretched arm as he hangs, suspended in mid-air, holding on with all of your might.

“Seg!”

High above you the portal to the Phantom Zone rages like a snowstorm in full swing, swirling and bucking as it tries to pull in your best friend, your brother, the only person you’ve got left in the world.

Seg’s plan had worked without a hitch. Thanks to you and Val reprogramming the hologram projector to emulate the real Val’s clothing and the Phantom Zone projector to kick into overdrive, he had managed to trick Brainiac onto the dais of the Fortress and into the projector’s path, trapping him within the Phantom Zone for all eternity.

Watching the malevolent creature get dragged up into that endless void had given you the greatest sense of triumph, had made everything you had endured over the last few weeks almost seem bearable. 

That feeling was only enhanced when Superman’s cape had burst back into being, a physical representation of your success. You’d felt a rush of pride, and you hoped that, wherever Adam was, he could see what you’d done; how you’d made his death have meaning.

But that had all been scuttled in seconds as Brainiac’s vengeful tendrils had erupted from the portal and wrapped themselves around Seg’s waist, dragging him up towards the portal as well.

You can’t let him go. You can’t lose him too, not when you’re this close, not when you’ve won, for Rao’s sake!

“Hold on, Seg!”

Val-El, the true Val-El, moves as quick as he can and joins you, holding Seg’s other hand as tightly as his feeble old bones can manage.

You don’t want to take your eyes from Seg, but you can see General Zod just outside your field of vision and risk a glance across at him.

He’s completely immobile, observing Seg’s peril with almost complete indifference. 

“General! Help us!”

Your words fall on deaf ears. Zod doesn’t move a muscle as you continue to struggle.

“Seg!” Both you and Val yell in unison, but you can feel your grip slipping, no matter how much you fight. The pull of the portal and Brainiac’s revenge is too much.

Seg seems to realise this before you do, and a certain peace comes over him. He smiles sadly, and calls your name over the howl of the portal.

“Live. Live for Adam. Live for me. Don’t let the world pass you by again.” 

“I won’t, Seg. I promise! Please, don’t go!” you shout, tears whipped from your face as soon as they leave your eyes. Your grip finally fails, and Seg’s hand slips from your grasp as you fall backwards, hitting the floor of the Fortress hard. 

Seg turns to Val, that same serene calm on his face as he speaks his last words: “Start believing in a better tomorrow again.”

“Seg!” In that moment, Val isn’t a scientist, or a rebel, or an explorer – he’s just a grandfather, losing his grandson, and the dismay in his voice shakes you to your core.

And then Seg’s gone, up into the portal, disappearing into the blackness above you. It winks out, its job done, its hunger sated by Brainiac and your lost brother.

You can’t move. You can’t speak. You’re vaguely aware of Val running to the main control console, attempting to reactivate the portal to retrieve Seg from the hell of the Phantom Zone.

“Val, you can't!” Zod protests, stepping up beside him, but Val is intent on his work, pressing buttons at high speeds.

“I will not condemn my grandson to that place of suffering!” he spits back. If anyone knows the horror of the Phantom Zone, what Seg is no doubt now experiencing, it’s Val.

Zod of course doesn’t seem to care. He grabs Val by the wrist and drags him away from the console. “But you risk bringing Brainiac back with him!”

Before either of you can react, Zod draws his pulse rifle and fires directly at the delicate console as Val scream, “No! No! Stop!”

The pulse blasts tear through the console as if it’s nothing, both technology and glass shattering easily, broken shards raining down like tears. Above you, the star map fades into blackness.

“My father’s sacrifice will never be forgotten,” Zod says solemnly. If you had any energy left, you’d argue with him, hit him, shoot him, something. But what’s the point now? What good would it do?

Zod stalks away without another word. All you feel right now is empty, as if someone has stabbed you full of holes and all of your will to live has poured out, mingling with the pieces of the control console to drown the floor of the Fortress in sorrow.

You take one of the shards from the floor where it sits near you, holding it up to the light absently. Another piece nearby looks similar, so you slot them together with a click, but they slide apart just as easily. It’s a twisted puzzle, you think. All of these disparate pieces, and nothing to hold them together. 

Like your life.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” says a small voice, and you turn to see Val standing by the wreckage of the console, head in one hand and his old shoulders heaving. “We just found our way back to each other, and now he’s gone, and I’m here, and I’d do anything to trade places with him. Anything at all.”

“Can...can you fix it?” you ask tentatively, showing him your two conjoined pieces, holding them together with your fingers. “If you put the console back together, could you open the portal again?”

Val looks sceptical but, just for a second, you see a small light of hope flare behind his eyes. 

“It’s not as simple as just putting the console back together, I’m afraid. We have to rewire the entire system, patch the power relays, re-energize the projector...”

“But?” There’s definitely a but. You can hear it in the way his voice is rising, the kindling of an idea sparking up into a flame.

“But...I think, I think we could do it. There is a chance, however small.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” you say matter-of-factly. There’s no room for argument; if there’s a chance, then you have to try – which seems to have become your philosophy lately.

And so, you set to work. You don’t care how long you need to dedicate to the task; it doesn’t matter. You’ve lost one person you love to Brainiac; you refuse to lose someone else. Seg may be out of reach for now, but he’s not gone. With you and Val working together, he’ll be back. You’ll bring him back, no matter what.

*****

It’s taken months, but you’re almost ready. After tireless hours of work, the fruits of your labours are obvious – the console is nearly completely repaired, and the systems are days away from being up and running again. Seg is finally within your grasp.

It’s been a thankless job. Neither you nor Val have wanted to talk much, so it’s mostly been silence between you. It’s been awkward, but it has helped you keep laser-focused on the task at hand. There’ll be plenty of time for small talk when you’re all back together.

The situation in Kandor, on Krypton as a whole, has only deteriorated in the time since Brainiac’s defeat. You don’t spend a lot of time in the city any more, only using the Cythonnite tunnel for essential supply runs, but you can feel the oppression on the streets worse than ever before.

In the time since Seg was taken from you, Zod has assumed control of the city. With Daron-Vex missing, presumed dead, and the Voice of Rao in literal pieces, it has been easy for him to fill the power vacuum. His overwhelming might has been solidified, with the other city-states of Krypton falling in line under pain of death.

Zod has transformed Krypton into a militaristic dictatorship around you, which is almost worse than if Brainiac had won. 

Superman’s cape still flutters in the corner of the Fortress, the House of El symbol now replaced with the pointed thorns of the House of Zod. The future, Adam’s future, is still in peril.

You remember your promise, how you’d insisted that you would stop Brainiac, stop Zod, and make sure Adam’s future came true. You’ve managed to fulfill one of these goals; the other two remain unfinished.

But you and Val can’t accomplish much on your own. For real change, you’re going to need Seg.

You’re sitting on the edge of the dais, taking a rare break to shove some food in your mouth, when Val eases himself down next to you. He places a small, familiar-looking box between you.

“Is everything alright? Are the systems-”

“Everything is proceeding according to plan, I assure you. We have done miraculous work these past few months, there’s no doubt about that. No, I just wanted to...to talk for a moment.”

You pause, food halfway between your lap and your mouth. You’re not sure what to make of this.

“I know we haven’t exactly been...close, since I got back, which was by design. Neither of us have had much to say; you barely know me, after all. But I...I know you. I know who you are.” He says your name then, the name Seg gave you. The name that ends in ‘El’.

He’s never said it in full before, always referring to you by your first name only. You didn’t even think he knew about the name Seg had bestowed upon you; you hadn’t wanted to bring it up – it was too awkward, too painful.

“How did you….You saw that? You saw me, while you were in the Phantom Zone?” you ask, putting the pieces together like the shattered pieces of the control console.

“I did. I kept an eye on Seg while I was trapped, so I inevitably saw you. The two of you were almost inseparable, and I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you. You looked out for my grandson when I wasn’t able, and for that, I must thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“He did the same for me. He was like...he was my brother.” You reach under your shirt and pull out the sunstone Seg gave you. You’d punched a hole in one end of it, and threaded it onto a chain so that it hung around your neck, just above your heart. 

“Did you want me to give this back? If you don’t want me as part of your House, I’d understand.” You go to take the sunstone off, but Val places a gentle hand on your arm.

“You have earned that honour, a hundred times over; I wouldn’t dream of taking it away from you. I saw what you did while I was…away. How hard you fought, how tenacious you were. Seg said it himself – I can’t think of anyone who inspires as much hope as you do. After all that you have been through, I’m proud to call you family.”

Your heart flip-flops in your chest again; you’ll never get used to hearing such a high compliment.

“Ah, but I know how you felt about Seg, too. You wanted to be more than his friend, or his brother. You wanted to be with him, but his heart belonged to another.” Val’s comments are on the mark, but he doesn’t edge them with judgement, merely states facts. “And then, you fell in love with someone else. With Adam Strange.”

You want to say that you haven’t thought about Adam in months, that your mind has always been on Seg and getting him back, but that’d be a lie. Adam is never far from your thoughts; whenever you feel defeated, whenever you want to give up, his image is there encouraging you with a grin, a pat on the back, a phantom kiss that leaves you with a tear on your cheek.

“Adam’s gone. I can’t save him. But Seg...I can still save Seg. Maybe one day I’ll have time to mourn Adam properly, but not until our planet’s safe, and I’ve kept my promise to him – I said I’d save our planet, and his future, and I haven’t done that yet. ”

“To that end,” Val says knowingly, “I found something while I was looking for a new coolant tube earlier today. I think it was meant for you.”

He slides the box over and then makes himself scarce, one hand lingering on your shoulder as he passes, an example of the grandfatherly comfort you feel that the hologram version of Val had always wanted to give you but was incapable of. Val leaves the main room of the Fortress entirely, and you’re left alone in the eerie silence.

You pull the box onto your lap, not sure what you’re going to find, if you even want to find it. You’ve managed to keep your grief bottled up for so long, first using Brainiac’s assault and now Seg’s plight as distractions, that you feel as if opening this box will open the bottle too.

This must be what Val’s hologram was talking about all those months ago; the thing that Adam had left for you when all hope was lost. You’d forgotten all about it.

You’ve certainly been feeling despondent lately, no matter how hard you try to feel otherwise. It’s hard not to. Things may not be entirely hopeless, but it’s gotten pretty damn close. 

And so, faced with this box, you don’t think you can resist opening it despite your reservations. You steel yourself, take a deep breath, and pop the lid. 

Nestled inside on a cushion of velvet, just like the one Seg had presented the sunstone to you on, is a piece of paper, one line written upon it. You put the box to one side as you take the paper out, reading the words aloud.

“I travelled across space and time to save the universe, and found myself saved instead.”

There’s a fizzling noise, and you turn to see a hologram bursting into life in the centre of the room. But it’s not Val-El this time – it’s a perfect copy of Adam, standing stock still, totally unmoving.

Curious, you walk over in front of the hologram, peeking around it as you would a real person, trying not to startle it. 

“Hi,” it says plainly as it spots you. It still doesn’t move, but its face lights up in recognition. 

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know what to do. You want to reach out and touch him, to feel his skin beneath yours, but you know that the disappointment of passing through the hologram would just break you all over again.

“Adam?”

“Not exactly,” the hologram replies. It’s voice is monotone, lacking the inflections that the real Adam had. It’s a more primate design than Val’s, clearly.

“He had me created in case of emergencies, and to explain what he left behind. I have basic answers to most questions you could think to ask, but there was no time to program Adam Strange’s entire personality into me.”

The hologram does however manage to grin, a perfect replica of Adam’s own, and you feel yourself welling up. You thought you had that grin committed to memory, but seeing it here in the (virtual) flesh, it’s like seeing it for the first time all over again.

“You mean you’re not what he left for me?” you ask, confused. “But there’s nothing else in the box.”

“The first rule of archaeology is that there is always something more beneath the surface.”

You frown and collect the box from the floor. You shake it, and sure enough there’s something rattling around inside. It seemed a bit large just for one small piece of paper, after all.

You open the lid again and grab the velvet, pulling it from the box.

“Well done,” the hologram says flatly.

You almost drop the box in shock. The velvet slides from your hand, and you’re shaking as you reach in and draw out Adam’s true last gift to you.

Sitting in the palm of your hand is an exact copy of his Zeta-Beam device. It’s identical, right down to the colour scheme and the markings on the top. 

“This is...how did he get another one of these? I thought he took his from Rann, that it was one of a kind?”

“You are correct,” the holo-Adam replies. “This one is the product of the hard work of the Val-El hologram. When the real Adam Strange asked for help fixing his original Zeta-Beam device, he also asked Val to see if he could duplicate it.”

You turn the device over in your hands. “What’s this for? Why did Adam want me to have this?”

“If hope truly had been extinguished,” the hologram replies, far more formal than Adam had ever been, “then Adam Strange wished for you to be safe. The Zeta-Beam device has enough charge for one jump. He programmed it with the coordinates to planet Earth, the exact year that he left.

“He thought that you would be safe there. You could escape the destruction of Krypton, live out a full, normal life on a planet where you would be hailed as a hero, with all the powers of Superman. And you could contact the Justice League, and send back further aid to Krypton; aid that he himself would have sought, had he not chosen to stay.”

You can’t believe what you’re hearing. Your mind is torn in half by the choice presented to you now. On the one hand, you could get away from all of this – leave Krypton and the mess that Zod has made of it to those with far more power than you and escape out into the universe. 

But if you did, you’d be leaving what’s left of your friends behind. Val would be on his own in the quest to rescue Seg. Nyssa is still missing – she could be hurt, or worse. You haven’t heard from Kem at all, although you have a sinking feeling that he may have been swept up in Zod’s forced conscription program. And Lyta is under Zod’s thumb, operating alongside Dev-Em from within Zod’s new government, although to what end you aren’t sure. You can’t just abandon them all...can you?

This was Adam’s dying wish for you though. You could explore the universe; if Earth is as advanced as Adam implied, then they would no doubt have space travel. You could visit Earth, and then venture out among the stars, see things that you never dreamed you’d see. He wanted you to live a life full of wonders, the furthest you could get from the life you lived before he arrived.

You pull Seg’s sunstone out from under your shirt again, spinning it around in your fingers absently. The sight of it usually calms you down, reminds you of what you’ve been fighting for, but now it just fuels the conflict in your mind. How can you just leave your planet, after you fought so hard to protect it?

You turn back to the hologram of Adam. It’s an uncanny copy, right down to the stubble on his cheeks and the callouses on his hands. The ache inside you deepens even further.

“Can you...go, please? I need to think about this, and looking at you, at Adam, it’s not making it any easier.”

“Of course. Simply speak the passphrase again should you need me,” the holo-Adam replies before winking out of existence.

You wander the halls of the Fortress, lost in thought, coming across Val in one of the side chambers, rummaging through a box for something or other. As you enter, he looks up and raises an eyebrow.

“Are you still here? I thought you’d be halfway to Earth by now,” he says. You should be surprised that he knows what Adam left you, but you’re not. Not in the slightest. You’ve learned very quickly not to question how or why Val knows something he has no right to.

“I...don’t know what to do,” you admit, rolling the Zeta-Beam device around between your palms. “Part of me wants to just drop everything and go, but the rest of me says I can’t. I can’t just leave. This is my fight, I should finish it.”

Val crosses the room and takes the Zeta-Beam device from you, placing it on the table. Then he takes you by the shoulders, as you’d seen him do to Seg, and he looks you dead in the eye.

“No one has given more than you to this cause, bar the people we have already lost. You have lost the one you love, your brother, your home, everything. No one would call you a coward for taking this option. You wouldn’t disgrace the House of El, if that’s what you’re worried about – you can still inspire hope by realising when you’ve reached your limit. Recklessness doesn’t do anyone any good, and neither does not knowing when to ask for help.”

“But Seg. You. I can’t just-”

“You can. I am giving you permission; Seg would say the same thing. If you have a chance at happiness, you are allowed to take it. Just send some back-up our way when you do.”

You steal a glance at the Zeta-Beam device again, now resting on a nearby table. 

“You can’t finish this work by yourself, not in time. If we don’t get Seg back soon, Zod might start looking outward, taking Krypton’s new army out into the stars; I can’t let that happen, no matter what. I could get to Earth and find it already overrun with Kryptonians – you saw what happened to Superman’s cape when Seg was taken away. I’ll help you get Seg back, and then...then I’ll think about it.”

Val smiles knowingly, clearly having anticipated your response.

“You don’t need to worry about me, you know. My long-range sensors have picked up a few new arrivals who should be here soon. Nyssa-Vex is alive, you’ll be pleased to learn. And Jax-Ur, an old friend whose expertise will be invaluable in my final calculations.”

“Nyssa’s alive? Oh, thank Rao!” You breathe a sigh of relief; this is the first good news you’ve had in...well, in three months.

“So I won’t be alone for long. You’re free to go. I release you from your burdens here. Do what Adam wanted for you. Go out there and live a life he would be proud of.”

“Val, I-I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Just get out of here, away from all this madness. Find Adam’s Justice League. Tell them of his sacrifice.”

You pull the old man towards you in the tightest hug you can imagine. He gasps in shock, all of the air knocked out of him in one movement.

“Alright. I’ll do it. Thank you, Val. Thank you for everything.”

“Thank you,” Val says, using your full name. “Thank you for taking this risk, and for everything you’ve done for my...for our family. I don’t know what I would have done without you these past few months.”

You smile sadly, a single solitary tear quickly wiped away with a sweep of your hand. And then Val is gone – there’s no goodbye, no good luck, just silence. You’ve said all you needed to say, and now you’re just delaying the inevitable.

You take the Zeta-Beam device from the table and press the central button. It flashes up with Kryptonian runes; Adam must have had Val program this with you in mind.

The destination is set for Earth, approximately two hundred or so years from now, as the hologram had said. Your finger hovers over the button again; you never asked Adam what Zeta-Beam travel felt like before. Will you get queasy? What if you’re turned inside out and come out the other end as a pile of Kryptonian sludge?

You’re delaying the inevitable again, you realise, and physically shake yourself, trying to get back on track.

Your finger hovers over the central button once again. You grip your sunstone necklace with the other hand; something from Seg, to remind you of where you’ve come from, and something from Adam, to remind you of where you’re going.

Then there’s a small ping from the device, and an arrow pops up on the side of the screen. You flip across, and nearly fall over in shock.

According to the Zeta-Beam device, there’s another source of Zeta-Beam emissions near you. But that’s impossible, isn’t it? The only other person who was exposed to Zeta-Beam radiation was…

Adam.

“I need you to come find me,” says a distant voice in your memories. You’d thought that was a dream, a hallucination brought on by Brainiac interfering with your mind, but...what if, somehow, you knew deep down that Adam wasn’t gone? That he was still out there, alive, and in danger, and only you could save him?

But, says the rational side of your brain, maybe it’s just his body. What if you use your one and only chance to escape Krypton to transport yourself to the corpse of your dead boyfriend?

No. No. This can’t be a coincidence. There’s never been any sign of Adam’s body since the explosion that took him from you. Who knows how Zeta-Beam technology works? He could have simply been thrown out into the Outlands.

Where he’s still alive after three months of exposure with no food and no water? 

This is insanity. You’re going around and around in circles, and there’s no clear-cut answer. All you can do is listen to your head, listen to your heart, and then make a decision.

When you boil it down, this really isn’t any kind of choice – you would do anything in the world, anything in the entire universe to save the people you love, and this sits very firmly within that purview.

Seg is in good hands, with Val and now soon Nyssa looking out for him. Your other friends are beyond your reach. But Adam? You can save Adam. He’d saved you from your life of humdrum boredom, and more practically saved you and Seg from the Voice of Rao’s bomb. It was time to return the favour.

“I travelled across space and time to save the universe, and found myself saved instead.”

Adam’s hologram blinks into life a few feet away, staring at you expectantly.

“How may I be of assistance?”

“Can you recalibrate this thing? Is that built into your database?” you ask it, holding out the Zeta-Beam device.

“Query: why would you wish to do this? Adam Strange explicitly programmed the device to take you to the best possible location to seek help.”

“Trust me, I’m having the same arguments in my head,” you snap. “Can you do it, or not?”

“I can. Please specify new destination.”

“There’s another Zeta-Beam signature somewhere on Krypton. Track that, and send me there.”

The holo-Adam closes his eyes and reaches out a finger towards the Zeta-Beam device. In moments, he opens them again, a triumphant grin on his face.

“Coordinates uploaded.”

“Right. Wish me luck,” you say. You’re surprised to hear him do just that, and then vanish once again, his job complete.

This time, there’s no hesitation in your mind as you press the control button on the Zeta-Beam device. Two blinking dots, almost touching, show up on the display. One is the mystery Zeta-Beam source. The other is your chosen destination – as close as you can get without being right on top of it.

You close your eyes, and press the button one final time, whispering to yourself as the power of the Zeta-Beam whisks you away.

“Hold on, Adam. I’m coming.”


	10. Strange Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set after the events of Krypton Season One

Zeta-Beam travel is surprisingly quick and painless; one second you’re standing in the Fortress, and the next you’re...somewhere completely different.

The brightness of the Fortress has been replaced with darkness, and you can barely see your hand in front of your face. 

Your temporary blindness is disorienting, and you reach out a hand to steady yourself against the closest wall, only to get a handful of clothing instead. Someone, or something, is right beside you.

You recoil in horror from the unseen person (at least, you hope it’s a person) and ricochet away, only to collide with another body, and then another, and another. Terror rises like bile in your throat, and you put your arms over your head and run. There’s a small pinprick of light above you and you head towards it, shoving past anyone or anything that gets in your way.

Your feet hit a flight of stairs, and you stumble up them as quickly as you can, scuffing your hands and knees as you trip. Bodies continue to press in around you, and you bite your tongue as you try not to scream.

Finally you burst out into the light, cannoning past another group of people and collapsing onto the ground. You expect your pursuers to close in on you, to grab you or shout at you for pushing past them, but for long, agonizing moments nothing happens.

Slowly you uncover your eyes. The world is tinged with a dark red glow, like perpetual sunset, and you blink until you become acclimatized. It’s only then that you realise the true horror that you’ve found yourself in.

This is a foreign land, full of strange looking square buildings with lights flickering on and off at random. Vaguely rectangular vehicles line the centres of the streets, some parked at odd angles, all of them unmoving.

But worst of all are the people. People are all around you, frozen in place, frozen in time. Most are mid-step, constantly on their way but never reaching their destinations. They wear strange clothing, full of rich colours that you’ve only ever seen up in the Guilds. Some of the vehicles still have occupants, pilots and passengers spread out on the interior seats.

None of them move. None of them acknowledge your presence, or even blink. You back away slowly, a sign above the stairs you just tumbled up proclaiming “Subway” in bright letters as you retreat down the street.

You wander this strange city, hoping to find some semblance of life, but everywhere is the same. People are frozen wherever you go, unmoving statues standing silent vigil as you pass. You feel disquieted, as if you are trespassing on a mass grave and the ghosts of the dead are judging you.

A sneaking suspicion grows in your chest as you wander aimlessly, not even sure where to start looking for any sign of Adam and terrified of what state he’ll be in if you do find him.

Val’s words about Brainiac and his collection echo in your head; how he brings time to a halt so that he can study his subjects forever, unmoving, unchanging, and the further you walk through the city, the more convinced you are of exactly where you have ended up.

Somehow, when the Voice’s explosive device went off, it must have interfered with Adam’s Zeta-Beam technology and sent him here, to this city, trapped forever as part of the collection.

For a moment, you worry that you’ll find Adam paralysed by Brainiac’s containment field, trapped in place for all eternity, but your logic manages to defeat that thought. If you’re here and you can move, then there’s no doubt that he should be able to as well.

So now you can instead go back to worrying that he was killed by the explosion and all you’re going to find is his dead body.

The thought of escaping doesn’t cross your mind, not yet. Because you’re not leaving here without Adam, dead or alive. 

The city itself is peculiar; there seems to be no logic to its arrangement, everything is arrayed at random. You pass food stores next to clothing shops, vehicle garages next to entertainment outlets, and many more places you’ve never even heard of. 

The one constant is the distinct lack of Adam. Everywhere you go, there is no sign of anyone interfering with the collection, nothing disturbed or oddly out of place. You’re not sure how large this place is; you could be wandering forever and never find him.

Eventually, feet aching and more than a little despair in your heart, you drop down onto a bench inside an expanse of greenery. Dense trees and bushes grow in neatly arranged lines around a small body of water full of birds frozen mid-swim. It’s kind of pretty, the type of thing that Kandor doesn’t have the space to accommodate, nor the inclination to include. If it isn’t practical, it isn’t Kryptonian – or at least it’s reserved for the Ranked, anyway.

“Where are you, Adam?” you wonder aloud, pulling off a boot and massaging the sole of your foot. Your voice sounds disturbingly loud in the eerie silence of the city, and you clamp your mouth shut quickly, irrationally afraid of someone finding you. But of course, that’s not going to happen.

As you dig your fingers into your aching heel, you shift slightly in your seat and the Zeta-Beam device rolls out of your pocket onto the bench with a thump.

You pick it up, expecting it to be dormant, a colourful ornament and nothing more. But surprisingly the display on the front is still alight. Your forehead wrinkles in confusion – the holo-Adam had said that the device only had enough power for one jump. Maybe it had one power source to operate on, and one to power the transport system? If you ever found Adam, you’d have to ask him about that too.

You’re about to put the device back into your pocket when you notice two familiar flashing lights on the display; you, and what you still hope is Adam. Only now that you’re in closer proximity, a map of the city has appeared overlaid onto the screen. 

And best of all, according to the device, the second Zeta-Beam signal is coming right this way.

You’re suddenly frozen yourself, not sure whether to run towards it or away. What if it isn’t Adam? What if it’s someone or something else, part of Brainiac’s security system out to kill you, and the fact that it gives off a Zeta-Beam signal is just a coincidence?

Or what if it is Adam? What are you going to say? How are you going to explain how long he’s been gone, what has happened to Krypton in the interim, what’s happened to Seg?

But you don’t have any time to contemplate anything further. The two lights are almost on top of each other, and you look helplessly between the entrance to the area and a large bank of trees across the way, not sure which way to turn, whether to run or hide or stay still. Then the decision is made for you, as you catch sight of the source of the second Zeta-Beam signal.

Behind a beautiful water feature is the sole gateway into the area, the one that you’d used to enter. Framed within it is the last person you ever expected to see again, the person who has lived in your dreams for the last three months, the person that means the most to you in the entire universe.

Standing between the slightly ajar metal gate is Adam Strange, a look of complete shock on his face.

“What...what are you doing here? Are you...are you real?” he whispers, but the silence of the city amplifies it to a yell.

“Adam!” you shout, and then you’re off at a run, tears streaming from your eyes and all of your worries and fears cast aside by the sight of him.

You collide with Adam and he wraps you in his arms, spinning on the spot as you bury your face in his neck, laughing and crying all at once.

“Oh my god, you’re real, you’re here!” he’s saying, but you’re not listening, focusing on the feel of his body beneath you, the strong beat of his heart, the strength in his arms as he clings you to him. 

“I thought I’d never see you again!” he says, and you smile and wipe away the tears from your eyes before new ones spring into place.

“Yeah well, I thought you were dead so I think I win.”

He laughs at that, a full-on laugh with his entire body, coloured by relief and surprise. And then he kisses you and it’s as if the last three months have been wiped away; all of the pain and hardship, the long hours with Val, the hopelessness of Kandor is all blown aside as if it never happened. It’ll be back as soon as you’re finished, but for just one moment you can pretend that it’s not important and just enjoy reuniting with the one you love.

“I’d ask how you got here, but I think I already know,” he says, pulling his own Zeta-Beam device from his pocket and showing you the screen. Sure enough, two lights are displayed, so close that they’re basically one.

You pull out yours and show him the same thing. He smiles sadly then, shaking his head.

“This isn’t what I left you that for, you know. You were meant to go back to my future, to get some help. You shouldn’t have wasted it coming here.”

“Yeah, well, I did. I was going to do what you said, but then my device told me that there was someone else nearby with Zeta-Beam tech, and I just knew that it had to be you. And there was no way I was going to leave you alone, wherever you were. So here I am, whether you like it or not.”

“Oh, I like it,” Adam laughs, “it’s just that now we’re both trapped. Your device is out of power, and mine’s busted.”

You’d been afraid of that. If Adam had been able to escape before now, you know he would have. So something must have been stopping him.

“Can you fix it?” you wonder, offering him your own device. “Use the parts from mine to fix yours?”

Adam shakes his head and scoffs. “I just about know how it works, not how to take it apart. Why’d you think I needed Val’s help to fix it before, and to make yours? And even if I could, I wouldn’t. These only carry one person, you know that, and I’m not leaving you here.”

“Where is here, anyway?” you ask, looking around. “Are we...in Brainiac’s ship? One of his bottle cities?”

Adam swears under his breath. “Yeah, I think we are. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And this place, this looks like a city from Earth. But my Earth, not Earth two hundred years ago.”

You frown, digesting that tidbit of information. You’d had no frame of reference to even begin to consider that, but now you’re even more confused than before. 

“But if Brainiac’s not from the future like Zod said, then how did he collect a city from your time?”

Adam shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine at this point. I’ve been here months, and I’m still as confused as I was when I first got here.”

“I’m sorry we left you here so long,” you reply, your hand finding his cheek. Your next words are full of sincerity; he has to know how true they are. “If I’d know you were alive, I’d have come sooner.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Adam says, but his eyes drop; the long months without any other contact have gotten to him, you can tell. He’s trying to act nonchalant about it, but that long in isolation would drive anyone a little mad. “You thought I was dead, so it’s me that should apologise.”

“Yeah, you should,” you tell him, trying to sound angry and failing utterly. “Heroic sacrifice or not, you’re not allowed to die. I won’t let you.”

“I saved you though!” Adam protests. “You, and Seg. I’m not gunna apologise for that.”

You can’t really argue. Instead you just slap him lightly on the shoulder. “Alright, just...don’t do it again.”

“You got it,” he says with a smile, and then turns serious. “So, what do we do now? We’ve got to get out of here, right? Back to Seg, and the others?”

You look away, not sure how to break the news. You take Adam’s hand and lead him back to the bench.

“Maybe you’d better sit down.”

****

*****

Adam looks grave when you finish recounting the events of the past three months. He’d been oddly quiet as you spoke, aside from swearing and punching the side of the bench when you told him of Seg’s imprisonment.

“Seems like people keep sacrificing themselves for me,” you tell Adam sadly as you finish your story. “And leaving me to pick up the pieces.”

“It’s because we trust you to save us right back,” Adam replies, chucking you under the chin so that your eyes meet once again. Rao, you’d forgotten how beautiful he is.

“I don’t seem to be able to save anyone though,” you protest. “Seg’s still trapped. You’re still trapped.”

“But think about everything you’ve already done!” Adam gets up, arms spread wide. “From what you said, you and Val have rebuilt most of the Phantom Zone projector tech, so Seg’ll be back eventually. And you literally teleported across the planet to come and save me.”

You hadn’t thought of it like that. All you could see were your failings, but Adam has shone a light on your...if not successes, then your determination to succeed. You feel yourself smile despite your dark mood, and get to your feet alongside him, taking his hand. 

“It’s beautiful here,” you say as you begin to slowly circuit the area, taking in the grass, the trees, the pond, the animals, all still, all immobile. “I wish we had more places like this on Krypton.”

“You guys are so advanced in some aspects, and so god-damned backwards in others.”

“Tell me about it.” You sigh, wishing that this moment could last forever. Then you realise that it actually is for the other inhabitants of the city, so maybe that’s not in the best taste. But even so, the sentiment stands. You’re in a place of natural beauty, with the man you love. In amongst all the insanity, you should take the good times where you can get them.

“I’ve missed you, you know,” Adam says suddenly, longing in his eyes. “You don’t know what it’s like, spending months alone, with no one to talk to, no one to laugh with.”

“I wish I’d come sooner,” you tell him again. “I wish you hadn’t come here at all. I wish...I wish a lot of things.”

“My wish came true,” Adam says, and you stop then, confused. He smiles at the puzzlement that must be obvious on your face. “I wished that I’d get to see you again, at least one more time. And here you are, as much as I didn’t want it to be like this.”

“I’m never leaving you again, Adam. Rao himself would have to drag me away from you. I refuse to lose you – we’ve been through too much to be torn apart even one more time. I won’t allow it.” The fierceness in your tone surprises you, but you’re glad of it.

“I love you,” Adam says, plain and simple. “I don’t know if I’ve said that enough, but I do.”

You look at Adam, really look at him, for the first time since you’ve arrived. His clothes are cleaner than you expect, and he’s clean shaven; he must have been foraging for food and cosmetics from the city around you, keeping a low profile.

But there’s a weariness to him, a weight on his back that wasn’t there when you last saw him; the loneliness of three months isolation.

And in that instant all you want to do is take that burden from him, to let him know that he will never have to feel that way again.

You close the gap between you and grasp his jacket in both hands, drawing him towards you gently but firmly. He complies easily, and your lips meet like two old friends.

“Here?” Adam asks incredulously. “Now?”

“Here. Now.”

He doesn’t argue any further, shrugging his jacket off of his shoulders into a heap on the ground. You tap him as he stands off-balance, and he topples backwards onto the grass. He looks up at you with both surprise and hunger.

You cover his body with yours, hands up under his shirt, mouth on his throat, his jaw, his neckline. Adam bucks beneath you, but as you said, you’re not letting him go ever again.

Adam’s hands wander as well, pulling your own shirt off and tracing the lines of your torso. The callouses on his hands send tingles to the furthest reaches of your body, as if you’ve be struck by a bolt of lightning.

And then the sky is all you can see as Adam grasps your hips and flips you onto the grass. You only have a moment to register your shock before Adam’s face fills your vision, the artificial half-light framed behind him, making him look as if he’s some god-like being descended from on high just for you.

The grass beneath you is soft on your skin, tickling your back as you move under Adam, a stark contrast to the roughness of his body on yours. 

Your dance continues, sometimes with Adam above, sometimes below. Time is suspended around you, and there’s no indication of how long you spend together, moments blurring into one sustained instance of pleasure.

At some point you fall away from each other, hands still intertwined, chests panting from the exertion. You roll to your side just as Adam does, and the duality of your movement makes you both smile through your breathlessness. Sweat drips from Adam’s brow into the grass, and you reach over and wipe it with your free hand. 

He covers your hand with his, and your eyes close slowly, despite your reluctance. Adam’s smiling face is the last thing you see as you lose your battle with your eyelids. As final sights go, it isn’t that bad at all, especially since only a few hours ago you’d never expected to see it again.

****

*****

The smell of the grass beneath you is the first thing you notice when you wake up. It’s fresh and natural, so foreign compared to the stone walls of Kandor and the ice and snow of the Outlands; you’re surprised that you managed to sleep on it at all.

The second thing you notice is the warmth of Adam’s body beside you, his arm flung over your chest, which brings a smile to your face. Your eyes flutter open, and the dimly lit sky of the bottle city greets you. 

You extricate yourself from Adam carefully, lifting his arm and placing it in the grass without waking him. He’s like a newborn animal, curled on the ground, embraced by the greenery. 

The sight of him solidifies your course of action in your heart; you know with a hundred percent certainty that coming to find Adam was the right thing to do. Any doubt you had left shrivels up at the sight of him like this, so innocent, so defenseless, so calm.

You look at him tenderly, and collect your clothes from where you’d scattered them across the area. Then you pad away through the greenery, through the trees and out the other side, curious as to what lies beyond.

Unfortunately, as soon as you part the surrounding bushes, you wish that your curiosity hadn’t gotten the best of you.

In the centre of a square across the way is a huge golden statue, protruding up into the sky like a majestic stalagmite on its way to pierce the heavens. It depicts a very familiar man, fist firmly braced at his chest what is unmistakably the Sagitari salute.

Somehow, despite making no sense in terms of linear time, there’s a statue of General Zod in the middle of this Earth city from two hundred years in the future.

“You’re making a habit of leaving me in the dust the morning after,” says a voice, as Adam sidles up beside you. “You’re gunna make me paranoid that I’m not very good at this.”

He wraps an arm around your waist, and you lean sideways so that your head rests on his shoulder. He’s pulled on pants, you realise, but his shirt is held loosely in his other hand.

“Oh trust me, there’s no reason to worry,” you tell him earnestly, but the sight of the statue of Zod has you distracted now. “I just didn’t want to wake you. I was going to come over here before I found you, so I thought I’d check it out before you woke up. Now I wish I hadn’t seen it at all.”

“It’s depressing alright. I saw it before and couldn’t make any sense of it, but after what you told me about Seg, I’m guessing that’s why he looks like that now.”

“He?” you ask, almost afraid to know the answer. “There’s always been a statue of Zod on Earth? I thought you said he was one of Superman’s greatest enemies.”

“There’s always been a statue here, but it never used to be of Zod,” Adam explains. “It was him when I left; Big Blue, the boy scout, the Man of Steel - Superman himself. The reason I did all this in the first place. And now...it’s this.” The disdain in his voice is obvious, and there’s a faraway look in his eyes as he looks at the statue, as if he’s remembering what it used to be.

As you stand there, head on Adam’s shoulder, you cast your mind back through the events of the last few months, taking a rare moment to yourself.

Your entire life has been turned upside down on multiple occasions – first by Adam’s arrival, and then by the revelations surrounding Brainiac and Zod, not to mention Krypton’s fate. 

You’ve fought for survival, for your friends, for love, for your planet. You’ve stood face to face with your enemies, and you haven’t flinched. You’ve defied them at every turn, used every ounce of your soul to resist.

You’ve lost people along the way – Ona and Rhom, as well as Seg, and Adam. Some of them you’ve found your way back to; some of them you’re still working on, and others still you’ll never see again.

You’ve been through so much. You feel like you’re in the eye of the storm, a brief reprieve from the fighting while it continues to rage around you. You know you’ll have to rejoin the battle in the end; but now that you’ve won this little victory, you’re prepared for whatever else comes next.

You reach out and take Adam’s hand as tightly as you can, fingers almost irrevocably entwined.

“What’s that for?” he asks. “Not that I’m complaining.”

You think for a second, unsure as to why exactly you’ve done it. You’ve held hands with Adam before, many times. But this feels different – in the past it’s been for comfort, or for reassurance. This time feels more like...a challenge.

“I’m just showing the universe what it’s up against,” you say, and Adam makes a questioning noise in response.

“Both of us, united. I meant what I said – I’m never letting you go again, not if I can help it. 

“I’m tired of losing you, of losing my friends, of losing no matter what we do. I refuse to let it happen any more. Everything I’ve said that I’m going to do, everything I’ve promised you and Seg and everyone else, I’m going to do it, time traveling criminals, intergalactic monsters, and whatever else the universe wants to throw at me be damned.”

You stop then, and look at him imploringly. “I want you by my side while I do it, too. I want us to do it. Together…if that’s what you want.”

Adam barely even blinks before replying, a wry grin on his face as if you’re crazy to expect anything less.

“Together, huh? I like the sound of that.”

****

**TO BE CONTINUED  
2019**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuuuuun! The worst 3 words in the English language - To Be Continued! If you've stuck around this long, thank you very much. This final chapter's a bit shorter than the others, but I didn't feel right ramming it into Chapter 9 so that it was super-long. Plus 10's a nice round number to end on, and the same amount as there are episodes in the season.
> 
> See you all in Season 2, I guess!

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it's been a while, but I'm back. Here we go again. 
> 
> For those of you that read my Teen Wolf series, this is going to be a pretty similar approach I think - a new story featuring the reader and Adam Strange, weaving in and out of the main Krypton show narrative. I try not to contradict canon as much as possible, and I try not to just quote entire scenes from the show if I can manage it, since you can just go watch the show if you want that. 
> 
> I've skipped Episode 1 since there weren't many interactions between Adam and the rest of the cast other than Seg, so we pick up right from the beginning of Episode 2, after a little scene setting and character establishing.
> 
> Oh, and as a disclaimer, I always try to keep my work as gender-neutral as possible, and I don't use the whole (Y/N) insert thing because I don't really like it.
> 
> Let's see how this goes, shall we? I hope you'll stick around for the ride.


End file.
